Camp Brightside
by livyceegee
Summary: Welcome to Camp Brightside, home of the ND's and soon to be home of one Blaine Anderson...Along with the singing, this camp isn't exactly...usual. The kids there are all...different. Sci-fi style.  Non-canon, powers, Klaine-centric. Hope you like it :D
1. Empty Kitchens

**Note: Imagine that Kurt had never actually attended McKinley, instead being sent to Dalton as soon as he was old enough. There, he joined the Warblers and met Blaine, and the story's the same from there on out. He never met any of the New Directions, and doesn't even know they exist. This takes place at Christmas, before Blaine and Kurt get together. Be prepared for uncanoness (*horrified expression* ohgodno, I'm not changing the ships, don't worry...Finchel and Klaine forever XD) of the supernatural/Gifted kind...**

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><p>Blaine Anderson glanced around the room full of Warblers as the voices of the other blazer-clad boys suddenly fell, softer but still as musical as before. He took a breath and plunged into the last part of the song, the other Warblers keeping the background music perfectly in pitch.<p>

"_I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing,_

_Just prayed to a God that I don't believe in_

_'Cause I got time while she got freedom,_

_'Cause when a heart breaks, no it don't break,_

_No it don't break, no it don't break even, no..."_

The collective voices of the rest of the Warblers rose to a crescendo, and Blaine held the note on for a moment while another voice split off from the main group and joined him on the last word. This voice was different; a countertenor that stood out against the other voices of the Warblers. Kurt.

He caught Blaine's eye as he sang, the blue-grey eyes that were now so familiar to Blaine meeting with his own dark brown ones. He was sat cross-legged over the other side of the room, balanced on one of the couch arms with a bird cage on his knees. A small yellow bird - Pavarotti - hopped around inside it.

_"What am I gonna do,_

_When the best part of me was always you..."_

Blaine smiled as Kurt joined, harmonising perfectly. This performance was unusually still for one by the Warblers - the furniture had remained unclimbed on for the whole song, and instead it was being used for it's proper purposes; boys sat on the couches and on the tables, just singing. Accapella, of course; as usual.

_"What am I supposed to say, _

_When I'm all choked up and you're okay..._

_(and you're okay now...)_

_I'm fallin' to pieces,_

_(yeah)_

_I'm fallin' to pieces,_

_(yeah)..."_

This time the countertenor sang the main part of the verse, Blaine chiming in and the rest of the Warbler's singing the background. The setup suddenly changed, Blaine re-taking the solo and the remaining Warblers splitting into two parts. One half continued to sing the background music, and the other half took the second part. Kurt was in the second half, his voice blending back in with the other Warblers.

_"I'm fallin' to pieces..._

_(One's still in love while the other one's leaving)_

_I'm fallin' to pieces..._

_('Cause when a heart breaks no it don't break even)..."_

The voices faded, and the room erupted into hoots, high-fives and cheers of congratulations. The sound of Wes' gavel hitting the wooden table rang out but was generally ignored as boys leapt to their feet and started pulling on coats and hats. Wes sent a desperate look over to David, sat beside him, but his friend just laughed and joined the others, slinging his bag over his shoulders and standing up.

"Calm down Wes, it's Christmas." Blaine said, rolling his eyes as he got to his feet.

"You people have _no_ respect for tradition." Wes sighed, putting the gavel down and frowning at the rest of the Warblers, who were starting to file out of the room with shouts of _Merry Christmas! _and _Happy New Year, try not to get too drunk!_ and other things along those lines.

"So, what're you doing over Christmas?" a familiar voice said from right beside Blaine, who jumped in surprise. He hadn't been paying attention, and the expression on his face made the owner of the voice laugh.

Blaine smiled faintly. "Not funny. And to answer your question, not much...I'm staying at home with my parents." he frowned at the mention of his parents, then shook his head. "I'll live."

Kurt's lips twisted downwards in a confused frown as he wrapped a scarf around his neck. "They're your parents, Blaine, how bad can they be?" he asked, and Blaine smiled ruefully. _Pretty bad, that's how bad._

"Not everyone's as accepting as Burt." Blaine pointed out gently, putting his bag on and getting out his phone. He started to walk out of the rehersal room and into the main corridor, heading for the exit.

There was a flurry of footsteps as Kurt hurried back over to the other side of the room to pick up Pavarotti's cage and then caught up to Blaine, walking at his elbow again. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that...I shouldn't judge." he apologized, sounding slightly panicked, light he was worried he'd overstepped his boundaries or offended the other boy.

Blaine stopped, and raised an eyebrow at Kurt, who was getting more and more embarrassed by the second. "It's fine, okay? My dad's just not altogether comfortable with having a son who's out, okay? Social circles and all that. You're okay, your dad's a mechanic..." he flushed deeply, and waved his hands around, almost throwing his phone across the corridor. "Not that being a mechanic is a bad thing, it's just that-"

Kurt laughed, and Blaine tried not to smile at the sound. "Blaine. Calm down. I don't mind, I think being a Lima mechanic is awesome..." he sounded a little uncertain at the last statement, then shook his head. "Anyway. If it gets too bad, you can always come visit?" he suggested, smiling hopefully as he started walking again. A cold draft from the main doors - that had obviously been left wide open - blew past them, and a couple of boys in identical blazers to Kurt and Blaine's leapt into action as the papers they were getting out of their lockers were scattered around the corridor, shouting frustratedly.

"I'd like that." Blaine smiled, after watching the two boys scramble for their papers and trying not to laugh.

They walked down the corridor in comfortable silence, Blaine trying to rearrange his books in his bag and Kurt carrying Pavarotti's cage carefully, trying not to jostle it as he went along.

As they reached the main doors, Blaine's phone rang in his pocket, _Teenage Dream_ playing loudly and attracting a few stares from boys waiting for buses or just hanging around. Blaine unlocked the phone quickly and answered it. "Hello?"

"_Blaine. Where are you?" _demanded a voice that could only be his father.

Blaine sighed under his breath, and Kurt shot him a worried look. "Hey, Dad. I'm just outside school."

"Should I go?" Kurt piped up slightly timidly. "I mean, I can go, I don't want to interrupt..."

"_Who is that? A girlfriend?" _

Blaine groaned mentally, kicking himself for not making Kevin Anderson wait until Kurt was gone. Now the countertenor would just get offended...

To his surprise, Kurt just laughed in a slightly embarrassed way. "N-o-o, sir...I'm Kurt. A boy." he added the last part hurriedly, as if just to clarify.

If an icy silence could be heard over the phone, then the pause that followed was icy. After a moment, Mr Anderson said "_Blaine, I'll be seeing you at home. Okay? Good." _in a clipped tone, then hung up.

Blaine groaned, and put the phone back in his pocket, turning it off to avoid any other unwelcome calls.

Kurt watched him in silence, as if waiting for an explanation.

"My dad still doesn't like the idea of having a gay son." Blaine said finally, folding his arms. "He tries to convince himself that it's just a phase, like I'll grow out of it. Sorry you had to hear that..."

Kurt looked a little irritated, then shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I'm more annoyed at him than you...So. Seeing as it's Christmas and we don't have to go back to that place-" he pointed behind him in the general area of Dalton "-for another couple of weeks, how about Christmas coffee?" he suggested, smiling warmly at Blaine.

Blaine swallowed, unsure if Kurt knew just how effective that particular smile was at scrambling his thoughts. "S-sure...I'll pay, I have some change from lunch so it's not an inconvenience or anyt-" he broke off, seeing the trademark bitch look that the other boy was sending his way. Rumor had it in the Dalton halls that the same look had sent a crowd of seniors scattering once when one of them had spilt coffee on Kurt's brand-new designer coat; when said countertenor had only been in his freshman orientation. "Fine. We'll split fifty-fifty." Blaine muttered, knowing there was no arguing with Kurt once he set his mind to something.

Kurt nodded, convinced, as the rain started to fall from the already-darkening sky, lightly at first and steadily getting heavier. He opened his mouth to speak, and was cut off by music from his own phone - _Defying Gravity_, the Wicked version. The first few bars of the introduction played, then Kurt slid the slim black phone out of his pocket, easily unlocking it in comparison to how Blaine had unlocked his.

A slight smile crossed Kurt's face as he read the text, then he suddenly turned white as a sheet, like he'd seen a ghost. He typed something, pale fingers flying across the screen, hit send and stuffed the phone back in his pocket.

"Kurt..." Blaine said slowly, coming to a halt. "What is it?"

A little colour returned to the taller boy's face as he answered. "Friday night dinners.", and Blaine nodded as if to say '_It's fine_.'. He knew about Kurt and his dad's tradition, and how Kurt had tried as hard as he could to make sure he _never_ missed a Friday Night Dinner after Burt had had his heart attack.

"Thanks." Kurt told him, and it was more like an apology. He graced Blaine with another smile, then turned and hurried in the opposite direction, soon turning into a dark figure carrying a birdcage that disappeared as he walked out of the patch of street illuminated by the streetlamps.

Blaine suddenly felt very, very alone in the steadily growing darkness, but he sighed and carried on walking by himself.

* * *

><p>The walk home seemed oddly empty without the usual presence of Kurt, which Blaine had become so accustomed to since they'd met at the start of the current school year when Kurt had joined the Warblers. It was a strange feeling for Blaine, and he kept finding his thoughts drifting back to the countertenor, probably to compensate for the fact he wasn't actually there.<p>

_Get used to it. You've got two weeks without him._ Blaine told himself, his house coming into sight at the end of the street.

The Anderson house was large - six bedrooms between three people - and in what was counted as the 'rich' part of Westerville. Two stories high with ornate front windows and a large, wide front door, Blaine's house looked intimidatingly big from the outside, and felt strangely hostile for a home when you were stood inside.

Blaine reached his driveway, and scuffed his shoes along the gravel lining the pathway, wanting to put off going inside for as long as possible. He didn't mind his parents; he really didn't, but he'd heard his father's tone of voice when Kurt had spoken. Blaine didn't feel like getting a lecture on his choice of friends, _'especially not those who sound like fairies', _the translation of which being '_especially those who might be gay and therefore encourage your 'phase'. '_

The house seemed even more empty and deserted than usual as he opened the door. The lights were off even though it was dark outside, and Blaine frowned. Surely his parents would be home by now? His dad had called, expecting him...

He shut the door behind him, and reached up a hand to flick on the main light switch panel, which would illuminate the whole downstairs floor. There was a _click_ and Blaine felt the switches move underneath his fingers, but no lights came on.

Silence.

After a moment or so, he swallowed, and called out "Hello?"

A sound of rushing footsteps came behind him, and he span around in the dark, suddenly imposing hallway. Blaine flinched as a rush of cold air breezed past him, and briefly wondered if he had anything dangerous in his bag, then almost laughed at himself. _Robbers? Seriously, Blaine? You shouldn't have let David talk you into watching Paranormal Activity 2 day before yesterday..._

He shook his head, and carried on inside the house with a strange feeling that he was being watched. He navigated his way down the hallway and into the kitchen, still in the darkness, hittinge every light switch he came across.

None of them had any effect. The sun was now fully below the horizon, and the house was almost pitch black as Blaine carefully made his way to the kitchen draws, searching through them until his fingers closed around a rectangular box.

With a grin of satisfaction, he slid the box open and took out a match, striking it hard against the rough side of the box. There was a hiss, then the flame brightened the area around Blaine.

"Ha." he whispered into the darkness in triumph. "Beat _that_."

There was another cold rush of air, and he felt something strike him over the back of the head. Something hard.

Dazed, he let out a yell and stumbled forwards, catching the edge of the kitchen table to stop him from hitting the floor. Whatever it was, he was hit again, and this time he tasted blood. Something hit him in the stomach, hard, and he struck out blindly in the dim light of the candle. His fists connected with nothing but air, then a hand grabbed his arm. There was a sudden sensation of being everywhere in the world at once, pulled apart and then fitted back together again, then Blaine's world went totally black.

* * *

><p>There was a soft sound as a long, thin match collided with a tiled kitchen floor. The flame burnt brightly in the silence for a few moments, then burnt itself out.<p>

Total darkness returned to the empty kitchen.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**So, yeah. This is only a short filler chapter. Sorry about that...the next one'll be longer, I promise! :D**

**You may or may not have already realised that this is only barely canon. It's not going to get any more canon, so if you hate non-canon fanfictions, stop reading. Powers, or Gifts, shall be involved, but I promise not to write any flying bricks...(people who can do literally everything. Those sort of powers are awful.)**

**~livyceegee**


	2. Searching

Blaine blinked with eyelids that seemed too heavy, and saw blue ceilings. He struggled to focus through the pounding in his head, and suddenly there was a face in front of his.

It was the face of a boy, about the same age as Blaine; with pale skin and wide, silvery grey eyes. The boy's hair was a sandy blonde colour and, seemingly naturally, stuck out at all angles, to the point where Blaine wondered if gravity actually applied to it.

Blaine blinked up at the boy, who seemed to realise he was awake and skittered backwards, silver eyes going even wider. "Girls!" he called, standing on his toes as if by increasing his height his voice would get louder. "He's awake!"

His voice, although it sounded like Kurt's except a little more musical and with a Southern accent, seemed even more high-pitched to Blaine in his dazed state. He groaned, and shut his eyes again as footsteps crashed down the corridor and into the room, followed by voices.

"Honest, Fly, if you've dragged me away from my iPod for _another_ false alarm, I'm so gonna wipe those little Southern Fried memories of yours so clean that you forget how to _breathe_." complained a girl's voice with an accent that seemed to be a mix of a London accent and something else Blaine didn't recognise.

"Agreed. Your favourite CD's? The country ones? The _Easy A_ movie soundtrack? Gone. Invisible. Right, Liv?" stated another girl's voice, sounding irritated.

"Um...but it's _not_ going to be a false alarm, is it Fly?" a third voice asked, sounding like she was from London too, but a little more Surrey than the first voice. "Is he awake?"

Blaine wanted to yell at them all to shut up because their voices went straight through him and only made the pain in his head worsen.

"...He was..." said the boy in a small voice.

The second voice made a frustrated sound, and there was a quiet _crack_, then suddenly Blaine was hit by freezing cold water. "Wake up!" she yelled, and Blaine coughed.

"_Asia_!" the third voice exclaimed, annoyed. "What if he's a slasher! You just _slushied_ a possible _slasher_!"

The first voice scoffed. "Livia. Slasher. This guy. Really?"

"I don't know, he hasn't woken up yet." the third voice mumbled, then went silent.

Blaine coughed again, and opened his eyes fully, then instantly regretted it. A red substance dripped into his eyes from his hair, and it _burnt_. "Arrgh! What _was_ that?" he asked, trying to blink the stuff out of his eyes as he looked around the room. He was sat in a room, a small room, like a dorm room, in bed. He found himself in dark blue, longsleeved pyjamas that were a little too big for him, and the gel was gone from his hair, instead covered by the red liquid that he identified as..._"Slushy_?" he demanded incredulously.

He shook his head, and sent a questioning look to the other four people in the room.

On the left side of Blaine's bed was a girl who was about the same height as he was, her blonde hair down and curly, held back by a headband with stars on it. She blinked at him with green-and-brown eyes, frowning. Next to her was a girl with darker skin, lighter than David's but darker than Blaine's own, with almost black eyes and red streaks in her dark brow hair. Continuing to the right, he saw another girl, about 5"8 and the same height as the girl with streaks in her hair. She had dark hair pulled back in a side plait and a front fringe that formed a frizzy halo around her head, and hazel eyes that were a darker version of the blonde girl's. Next to the fringe girl was the silver-eyed boy from when Blaine had first woken up, a messenger bag over one shoulder.

"It's slushy." the third girl, who Blaine recognised as the third voice, confirmed.

"Fresh, icy cold goodness." added the girl with the streaks; the second voice. "Straight from the machine in Second."

"Good morning, sunshine!" the three girls chorused, then the blonde and the girl with the streaks collapsed into hysterics. The fringe girl just rolled her eyes, looking like she was trying not to laugh.

The silver-eyed boy ignored them, and smiled at Blaine. "It's not morning, actually, it's early afternoon. How're you feeling? Usually the Directors leave people...less beaten up."

"Does that explain why the giggling makes my head want to explode?" Blaine groaned, and pulled the covers over his head.

This only made the first two girls laugh harder, and Blaine found himself having to wait until they stopped - or, rather, having to wait until they laughed so hard that they couldn't breathe and had to stop.

This earnt them a glower from the silver-eyed boy. "Probably. The Directors aren't exactly sweet when it comes to getting us unconscious so they can bring us here."

"They broke three of my fingers." the girl with the streaks supplied, rolling her eyes.

"Because you hit them with a baseball bat." the fringe girl said simply, and this set the blonde off into hysterics again.

"Yeah, well you just _let_ them take you." retorted the streaks girl, raising an eyebrow.

The girl with the front fringe blushed, and Blaine suddenly had a hard time looking at her. Trying to make her out from the rest of the room only worsened his headache, and he couldn't work out why. "Excuse me? Who are the directors again?" he asked, confused.

"_Directors_." the blonde corrected, standing straight again insted of being doubled over with laughter. "The 'D' is capital. Like a name. You'll see them around. Dressed all in white. White suits, white gas mask, white boots..."

"...Like spacemen." the streaks girl added.

Blaine found himself even more confused, so glanced over to the silver-eyed boy, who seemed remotely sane, for support. The boy smiled sympathetically at him. "You'll get used to it." he said firmly. "In the meantime, what's your name?"

"Blaine Anderson." Blaine heard himself say, half-zoned out.

The blonde girl waved. "Hi, Blaine!" she chirped, practically bouncing up and down. "I'm Carlie. You don't need to know my second name, nobody does, 'kay? This is-"

"-Asia." intterupted streaks girl. "The second-name principle applies to me and Liv too. I can introduce myself thanks, Carlsberg..."

The silver eyed boy smiled. "I'm Flynn Eade, but everyone just calls me Fly. We already have a Finn, and if people used my full name it'd just complicate things..." he shrugged, not seeming bothered by the arrangement. "Nice to meet you, Blaine."

"I'm Livia." the fringe girl said, smiling slightly. "But everyone calls me either Livy or Livs."

Blaine blinked in confusion. "Nice to meet you all too...you're confusing."

Fly shot the three girls a Look. "Yes, we Thirds can do that to you...You three mind leaving?" he asked the girls, who just stared back at him. He sighed. "Give me fifteen minutes?"

Livy tilted her head. "...Fine." she said after a pause.

"We'll leave." agreed Asia. "But we'll be back..."

"...In fifteen minutes." Carlie nodded. "Hey, there's a song about that! Fly, it's one of your favourites!"

Fly looked mortified. "Oh, God..." he mumbled as Carlie burst into song, quickly joined by the other two, Asia chiming in immediately and Livy hesistating before singing along.

"_I'll be back, in fifteen minutes,_

_When they've made me a superstar,_

_When I'm back, in fifteen minutes,_

_I won't forget who you are_

_Open doors of recognition,_

_And he knew what I was looking for,_

_But I'll be back, in fifteen minutes..."_

"The _Yeah You's?_" Blaine asked, raising an eyebrow.

Fly looked embarrassed, then shook his head. "Doesn't matter. So, now the rabble have left, how much do you actually know about this place?"

Blaine just blinked at him. "Nothing." he said honestly. "Apart from the fact you and three crazy girls go here?"

The other boy sighed, and sat down in a chair that Blaine hadn't seen before next to his bed. He guessed that it must have been there before and he couldn't have noticed it. "Right. This place is called Camp Brightside, and-"

"-Wait just a second. I'm in a _summer camp_? I don't think you people have noticed, but you can see your _breath_ outside." Blaine pointed out, going by the experience of when he'd been walking home. "It's glacial out there."

Fly sighed, and ran a hand through his hair in slight frustration, which then somehow assumed the same position as it had been in a moment ago without the use of gel. The expression on his face told Blaine he'd heard the same question before. "Not a summer camp, just a camp, okay? There are five main buildings you need to know about; the dorm buildings, which are unoriginally named First, Second and Third, the Director's building and Zero. Zero looks like the other dorm buildings but it's totally boarded up, and as far as we know it's deserted. It's not actually in the main camp, but in the forest. We're sort of in an island of deforestation if you want to think about it that way. You're currently in Third."

Blaine nodded, trying to keep up with Fly's too-quick way of talking. "Right. So, why the hell am I at a camp? I didn't sign up for anything. And why am I covered in bruises?"

Another sigh. "The bruises...about that. Did you get any leaflets? In the post? About this place?"

Blaine shook his head. "Nothing that I know of."

"Any way that you could have missed anything?"

"My mom's always home, so she'd get there first..." Blaine trailed off, and shrugged. "Maybe she showed my father and he didn't like the idea. He's...overbearing that way."

Fly smiled sympathetically. "So maybe you just didn't see the leaflet, so the Directors felt they had to bring you by force. Don't worry about your parents, I know the feeling. My dad owns a big oil company, so he was anything but unwilling to send me off to this place and get me out of the way so he could carry on with business in peace, without the idea of a gay son getting in the way. Apparently I stopped a big client from buying once. Homophobic oil barons, I guess."

"By _force?_" Blaine raised an eyebrow. "Wait...You're gay?"

"Um..yes. Is there something wrong with that?" Fly asked, wide-eyed, seeming to ignore Blaine's first question. It didn't sound like a passive threat, just an honest question.

The Warbler shook his head hurriedly. "No, no...I meant to say, me too..."

Fly smiled slightly, looking embarrassed to have inadvertantly got the information out of Blaine, and there was an awkward silence that neither of them seemed to want to try and fill.

After a moment or so, the sandy-haired boy spoke up. "Anyyyywayyy...To finish, the Directors run this place. You'll see them around dressed all in white, looking like spacemen as Asia put it...The suits are made out of the same material as NASA uses, actually, so 'spaceman' is a pretty neat comparison actually...Although there's a reason they look like something out of bad sci-fi movies though. Have you noticed anything...odd about yourself? Uh, as in, to use the words again, sci-fi odd?"

Blaine frowned, wondering if Fly was actually being serious. "No. I'm human, if that's what you mean." he said dryly, raising an eyebrow. Maybe this kid was a science fiction geek; like the kid who was obsessed with aliens in Blaine's Math class.

Fly shook his head. "Of course you haven't." he muttered to himself. "Arrgh...this part's always just so _awkward_..."

Blaine waited silently, sensing that the other boy wasn't quite done yet.

He was right. "Look. This is going to sound horrendously childlike, but do you believe in magic?"

The Warbler almost laughed out loud, and covered it up with a cough. "Magic? As in, Disney and Tinkerbelle, or the Spiderwick Chronicles?"

Fly scowled. "No. They don't _exist_. I meant like...powers."

"_Superpowers?" _Blaine asked incredulously.

"Yes, superpowers. Shall I show you?" Fly asked, pulling a catalouge out of his bag.

"You're going to show me superpowers...with an _Argos_ catalouge." Blaine stated skeptically. "_Right_..."

Fly sighed. "Just trust me, okay?" he told Blaine, flicking through the pages of the thick catalogue. He stopped in the electronics section and span the book around so it was the right way up for Blaine to see it. "If you could have any of these, right now...What would you have?" he asked, seemingly randomly.

With raised eyebrows, Blaine looked at the double page. On it was a selection of iPods and iPhones, along with headphones and other accessories. He thought for a second, then pointed at one of the iPhone cases. It was striped in bright colours, with the silhouette of a canary in the centre of the rubber, in yellow. The overall effect reminded him of Pavarotti, which reminded him of Kurt and therefore Dalton. He smiled slightly, then said "That one."

Fly glanced down at the phone case, then focused on it. Blaine stared at him, confused. What was he trying to do, _will_ the thing out of the page? Blaine was about to say _'Try taking it to a store and actually buying the thing, it's much easier_.', when Fly waved one hand down at the page. The picture was...becoming more solid. As he watched, the phone case seemed to get more and more defined on the page, then he blinked and suddenly it was there, sat atop the open catalogue. He tried not to look surprised.

"Is that some sort of illusion?"

Fly, in response, picked up the phone case then tossed it over to Blaine, who caught it and flipped it over. "It's not an illusion."

"That's what an illusionist would say." came the skeptical reply.

Fly rolled his eyes. "Honest, the girls were much easier to convince than you this. Mainly because they liked the idea, but still...Do you believe me now?"

Blaine shook his head. "Nope. What was the point you were trying to make, anyway?"

"Camp Brightside is a camp for kids with superpowers, okay? Don'tyou_dare_laughatme." Fly blurted, the words running together. He glared at Blaine halfheartedly, as if expecting not to be believed. He took something else out of his bag - a mobile phone - and typed something into the keypad, then put it away again.

Almost a fraction of a second later, there was a _crack_, similar to the one Blaine had heard while still half-awake just before he'd been slushied. He looked sideways without thinking.

In the middle of the room, which had previously been empty save himself and Fly, Blaine saw a boy with brown hair suddenly appear, wearing a longsleeved white shirt and a sweater vest. He was in a wheelchair, and stared straight back at Blaine with blue eyes from behind a pair of geek-style glasses, as if daring him to ask how he'd gotten into the room, seemingly by...well, _magic_.

Blaine opened his mouth to make a comment, but he didn't seem to be able to make a sound.

"Do you believe me _now_?" Fly asked hopefully, and Blaine suddenly remembered that he was meant to be answering a question.

"Yes." he said without thinking, then shook his head. "I mean...um...how did you do that?" he asked the boy in the wheelchair, who laughed.

"I extended my consciousness so I could access the fabric of time and space, and then I just transferred myself through." the boy stated. "In short, I teleported. Like this."

There was another _crack_, louder this time, and the boy and the wheelchair vanished, reappearing on the other side of Blaine's bed.

Blaine turned to face Fly, frowning at the silver-eyed boy. He was silent for a few moments, before demanding "_What the hell was in that slushy_?"

* * *

><p>"Kurt, you really should stop that now." Nick said tiredly from his seat in the Warbler's rehersal room where the six Warblers had made what Thad had nicknamed 'Base Camp'. In the space of three short days, the room had been transformed - the ornate couches had been made over into beds, with quilts and pillows draped carelessly over them; the tables were covered in large coffee cups and there were dinner trays and microwave meals stacked up on one of the chairs. Three camp beds had been put up in one corner of the room to accomadate for the rest of the small, unnofficial search party. One of them was still made; untouched.<p>

Kurt frowned, looking up from the lapton he had on his knees, searching the Dalton CCTV footage from the night of the disappearance. "No!" he snapped a little too loudly, gaining himself dark looks from the various occupants of the room who looked like they just wanted to collapse into bed. Kurt took a breath, then said, more quietly, "Sorry. I'm just tired..."

"We're _all_ tired." came the muffled voice of David, who had his face pressed against the dark-wood table and was using his arms as a pillow. Flyers reading _MISSING_ in large bold type beneath a picture of Blaine, smiling out at the camera, and a phone number were spread around him, still warm from the photocopier. "Can we sleep now? I'm shattered."

"I'm all for finding a fellow Warbler," Wes chimed in between yawns, "But this is getting to the point where it's not normal. I haven't slept in twenty-four hours, and I'm the most awake here."

Kurt sighed. "I never said you guys couldn't sleep...You can go if you want. I'll be fine." he mumbled, still staring at the bright computer screen. He hit the play button yet again, rewatching the video of the Warbler's performance of _Breakeven_, hoping to see something in the lead singer's behaviour that would give Kurt even the slightest hint of where Blaine had vanished to.

Because vanished Blaine had. For three days, nothing had been heard from him - no sightings, no phone calls, no texts, nothing. Not a single indication that Blaine was even alive. Kurt had just left him on the day they broke up for school, then...nothing. Like Blaine had just vanished off the face of the earth.

Kurt was the last person to have seen him. And knowing that, and knowing he was hopelessly searching without any idea of what he was doing made him feel as if he was slowly breaking to pieces.

Once again, the video revealed nothing. If anything, watching it for at least the ninth time just made the countertenor even more confused, but he bit his lip and replayed the video. Snatches of conversation drifted out of the laptop's speakers, and he'd watched the same clip so many times now that he didn't even need to listen to know exactly what the words were.

_' "(One's still in love while the other one's leaving)_

_I'm fallin' to pieces..._

_('Cause when a heart breaks no it don't break even).." '_

Kurt focused on Blaine as the sound of any conversation was muffled out by the recorded cheers of the Warblers and the sharp sound of Wes' gavel, still a little amazed at how _perfect_ the curly-haired Warbler's voice had sounded in the last chorus,,,. Well, the whole song, actually, when he thought about it.

'_"Calm down, Wes, it's Christmas."_

_"You people have no respect for tradition..." '_

Kurt looked up, and realised that Nick, David, Wes and Thad were watching him almost sadly. "What?" he asked, confused.

Thad sighed, shutting the book he had out on the desk in front of him with a dull _thud_. "Kurt, dude. You haven't slept since you found out. What's that, like, seventy-two hours? That's not healthy."

"_Three days,_ Thad!" Kurt burst out, trying not to look as panicked as he felt. Obviously he failed, because the sad looks on the other boy's faces turned to worry. "We haven't heard a thing for three days...Can you blame me for being just a little edgy?"

"_Just_ a little?" David muttered, and recieved a glare from Wes, who was the least sleep-deprived out of the six of them, discounting Pavarotti. David stood up, stretched, then said "Sorry about this, but I'm going to hit the sack. I haven't gone so long without sleeping since New Year's last year when _someone_ bet me I couldn't stay up for two days straight without getting cranky." he shot a glare over to Wes, and took three long steps over to the second couch - the first being occupied by a softly-snoring Jeff - and crashed down on it, pulling the quilt over his head.

Three of the four still-awake Warblers mumbled different variations of '_Night, David' _, and Wes glared at the two sleeping boys almost enviously.

Kurt was aware that he was keeping the other boys awake, so he shut the laptop and stood up. He swayed slightly, partly out of exhaustion and partly out of the sudden blood rush to the head after being sat down for so long, and stretched out a pale hand to catch hold of the edge of the table and steady himself. Once the lights dancing in front of his eyes from the brightness of the laptop screen had faded, he looked around properly for the first time since he'd entered the room.

The room was a tip, a far cry from Dalton's usual standard of cleanliness. The teachers had allowed the six Warblers to establish the Base Camp after Kurt had promised sincerely that the place wouldn't be burnt down and they'd be out by Christmas Day. Now, almost four days later, coffee cups that Kurt only remembered being confined to one tray covered most of the free table space in Nick's attempt to keep everyone awake. The coffee was working for Kurt; probably helped along by his determination to find Blaine, but it didn't seem to be having the same effects on the other boys.

Jeff and David were sound asleep, and it didn't look like there'd be any waking David for at least twelve hours without him going ballistic. Wes was watching Kurt hopefully, as if he was just waiting for the countertenor to finally give in so that they could all sleep. The thought made Kurt smile slightly - Wes obviously didn't want to seem like he wasn't trying, especially as he'd slept the most recently, but it was clear that he was almost dead on his feet. Nick had moved, and was now trying to gather together the flyers that had been fanned out on the table around David. Thad had joined the sleepers, his arms sprawled out across the table and his head on his leather-bound book that he'd been reading, somehow using it as a makeshift pillow.

Kurt felt tiredness wash over him, and fought it down, fisting his hands so tightly that his fingers ached and then releasing them. "I think I'll get some sleep, too," he mumbled, going over to one of the camp beds and sliding the laptop just underneath it, surreptitiously plugging in his headphones.

Wes looked infinitely relieved, and leapt to his feet, skidding over to one of the camp beds and practically tumbling onto it. He seemed to fall alseep instantly, not even bothering to use the quilt. Nick smiled worriedly at Kurt, but went over to the light switch and flicked it off, plunging the room into darkness. Kurt heard a thud as the only other awake Warbler slid over the back of the last couch, and a rustle of quilt being moved, then silence.

He sighed, barely audible, and slid the laptop out from under the bed, lifting the lid and pulling the thick quilt over his head to block the light so the other boys could sleep. He put the headphones back in his ears, turned the video back on, and watched.

* * *

><p>Three hours later, it was just beginning to get light, just a sliver of sun visible above the horizons and allowing a little light to filter through the old-fashioned blinds.<p>

Kurt Hummel refreshed the Missing Persons website for the hundreth time since 'going to sleep', struggling to blink away the exhaustion that was threatening to overcome him, three night's worth of lost sleep quickly catching up to him. He shut his eyes for a moment, and his last thoughts before drifting off to sleep were _'I'll find you, Blaine. Promise._'

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

**So, yes ^_^ Probably could have been better, but hey! I need to do my homework now...*silent screams at Geography homework*...because I'd like to avoid detention for tomorrow.**

**~livyceegee**


	3. Astronauts

**Just as a side note that I seem to have forgotten to add for the last two chapters, I DO NOT OWN GLEE! Or any of Glee's characters...I also don't own Carlie, Asia and Livy (Carlie being based on CarlyLeeH, and Asia being based on Similar_Raptor, and Livy being based on...uh...me...don't look at me like that. I can't leave those two alone in a fanfiction, they'll tear apart the fabric of spacetime if I don't keep a close enough eye on them...)**

**On the other hand, Fly is one of my OC's, and so is Fay when you come across her. Others may arrive later, but not for now...**

* * *

><p>Blaine woke up at almost the same time that Kurt fell asleep, and his first thought was:<p>

_Where the heck am I?_

"You're in Third, silly." giggled a girl's voice, and Blaine sat up, drawing his knees up to his chest, confused. Sat at the end of his bed, cross-legged, was a blonde girl with a curly ponytail and blue eyes. She was wearing an odd outfit of a short red dress, accentuated in black and white that reminded Blaine of the cheerleading outfits from movies.

"That's because it _is_ a cheerleading outfit." the girl frowned, looking annoyed. "It's not from a movie, it's real."

Blaine, sure that he hadn't even spoken out loud, was about to ask why she was answering unasked questions when he remembered the events of the previous day. The teleporting kid, who'd introduced himself as Artie, had dragged him and Fly on a tour around the camp, and Blaine still couldn't get over the feeling of being pulled apart and fitted back together.

He groaned, and pressed his face into his knees, wanting to go back to sleep and wake up back in his old bed, or even better, in the dorms at Dalton. "Stop doing that." he mumbled despairingly to the girl in the cheerleading outfit.

"Doing what?" the girl asked cheerfully. "I'm Brittany, by the way. Brittany S. Pierce, nice to meet you, Blaine!"

Blaine waved a hand as if to say 'everything', not bothering to introduce himself as it seemed Brittany already knew his name, somehow. "Getting inside my head, or whatever you're doing."

"She's mind reading. Get it right, Curly." came an irritated-sounding voice from the doorway and he looked up as a dark-haired Latina girl came into the room. She was wearing a similar outfit to Brittany, although her hair was down and straightened.

"It's the same thing, isn't it?" Blaine asked, raising an eyebrow and ignoring the Curly comment. "Does this place have a cheerleading squad?" he asked, confused by the uniforms.

"No, it's not. Britt's just reading your thoughts like you're a very short book." the Latina told him, rolling her eyes. "And no, we don't, so don't get your hopes up. We just like the uniforms."

Brittany frowned at her. "Santana, he's a dolphin." she stated, and Blaine gave her an odd look. "He wouldn't care if there was a cheerleading squad unless there were other dolphins on it."

The dark-haired girl - Santana - shrugged, but a curious gleam came into her eyes. "Britts, if we had our old cheerleading squad here, we'd collectively be enough to un-dolphinize him. Face it."

"Wait just one second." Blaine interrupted. "What's a 'dolphin' mean in the sense you're using it? Because I'm obviously not a big fish."

"Dolphins are mammals." Santana cut in. "We mean you don't go for girls. It's just how Britt puts it...By the way, have you met Fly? About your height, sandy hair, eyes annoyingly like the moon?" she asked, the curious look developing to a mischevious smile.

Blaine stared at her for a second, confused, then it clicked. "You're not actually trying to matchmake me with Flynn Eade, are you?" he asked after a pause, one eyebrow raised.

"You're single, aren't you?" the Latina said bluntly.

"He's single." confirmed Brittany, a grin starting to spread across her face.

"So why not Fly?" Santana continued blithely. "He's all Southern Fried sweetness. Honest, he's so sweet sometimes that I actually wonder if he's not a reincarnated happiness fairy. Plus, he's kind of cute in an adorkable way...Adorable, dork? See what I did there?" she rolled her eyes at Blaine's stony, nonexistant response. "Geez, some people have no sense of humor...Stop looking at me like that, it's unnerving. What's wrong with Fly?"

Blaine was silent, the incredulous look still on his face as he glared at Santana. _Is she actually being serious? I've known her what, five minutes and she's trying to match me up already?_ _She barely even knows me! What about Kurt?_

At the thought, he blushed a deep red, and had to remind himself that _Yes, what about Kurt? I _like _him, but we're just friends...He'd have freaked out if I tried to take it any further._

A look of understanding sparked in Brittany's blue eyes, and she beamed suddenly. "_Of course_ he doesn't like Fly, San! He's got already got a unicorn!"

"Uh...not to sound stupid, but..." Blaine trailed off, sending Brittany a questioning look.

"When a pony does a good deed, it gets a horn and becomes a unicorn." she recited happily. "A unicorn is someone special, who does good things, but sometimes they can forget that they're special. Then they become zebras. So, who's your unicorn, Blaine?"

Blaine hesitated, then realised that none of them actually _knew_ Kurt, so there'd be no point in not telling them. "He's not _my_ unicorn, but from what you said, he certaintly is a unicorn." he smiled warmly. "He's back home, in Ohio..." he froze suddenly, wide-eyed. "Ohmygod. How long have I been here for?" he demanded, having lost all sense of time.

Santana looked up at the ceiling as if trying to work it out. "A good four days now." she decided. "Christmas Eve's tomorrow."

"Christmas Eve's today." Brittany corrected, practically glowing with excitement. "I can't wait, I really can't! Santa's amazing and he's _definitely_ going to get me what I want this year." she beamed.

Blaine didn't even wonder if Brittany actually still believed in Santa Claus, instead focusing on the amount of time he'd been away. He stared at both girls, shocked. "F-four days?"

"Four days..." Santana confirmed, nodding. "What's so bad about that?"

"Four _days_?" he choked out, looking panicked. "I've been gone for four whole days! They'll be looking for me and-and...where's my phone?"

"You can't use phones here." Brittany told him sadly, although Blaine couldn't tell whether she was sad because she couldn't use her phone or because she felt sorry for him. He decided it was probably a little of both. "There's no signal..."

"I have to phone Kurt!" Blaine insisted. "Or I have to leave and explain where I am if I can't, I said I'd call him and he'll be freaking out and-"

Santana interrupted him, watching him almost pitifully. "Blaine. I don't think it's been explained to you, but once you get here, you can't leave. Nobody leaves, not even the Directors..." she trailed off, studying Blaine's expression as if trying to see if he was about to freak out.

"Kurt..." he mumbled to himself, forgetting they were there. "Oh god, Kurt...The Warblers...David...Wes...Thad...Nick...Jeff...Even the canary. I'm never going to see any of them again, am I?" he asked miserably, not even thinking of his parents. He knew that if he _did_ never see anyone from Ohio again, his friends would be the ones he'd miss the most.

"'C'mon, Britts." he heard Santana say distantly. "Leave him be, okay? Culture shock sucks."

There was the sound of footsteps and the door behind him closing, then Blaine was alone in the room.

* * *

><p>"Do...do you think he's coming down?" Livy whispered to Carlie and Asia, sat in the Third common room, sandwiched between Asia and Rachel Berry; who'd come from First to try and investigate the newcomer. Quite a few people had obviously had the same train of thought, because there were several other non-Thirds in the small common room; which was already full of all the Thirds themselves. Finn, who'd come with Rachel, was sat on the other side of his girlfriend, talking to Puck, who'd also tagged along. They were discussing the recent football match - Camp Brightside did have television, so the 'campers' could keep up with news of the outside world even though they weren't allowed to have contact with it. Brittany, also in First, was still there<p>

The whole of Second was there, excluding Mike and Jesse. Quinn was sat with Beth on her knees, speaking softly to her daughter. Quinn's story was well-known around the camp; she'd slept with Puck, and gotten pregnant in her third year there. She was also one of the longest-staying members, having been there since the age of twelve. Sat beside her was Santana, who along with Brittany, hadn't left, and Mercedes, who had her headphones in and was singing to herself. Rory was sat on the floor across from a girl with the same silvery eyes as Fly, but her hair was so dark it was almost black, and he was talking to her animatedly, waving his hands around. She was laughing, and talking quickly in a Southern accent that was easily distinguishable against his Irish one.

Carlie shrugged as she swallowed a mouthful of coffee from the mug she was holding in her hands. "I don't know..."

"Hopefully sometime soon." Rachel said quietly, looking up at the ceiling as if she expected Blaine to fall through it.

Brittany looked in the same direction as Rachel, except with a little more insight due to her power. She shrugged lightly after a moment. "The Dolphin won't be coming down anytime soon. He's sad because he's lost his unicorn." she sighed, looking upset by the idea.

"It's been four hours, surely he must have sulked himself out by now..." Rachel trailed off, looking back at the floor again.

Puck snorted. "That's rich. You practically screamed First down when you found out you would never get onto Broadway. Leave the poor guy alone, it's not his fau-" he broke off midword at the ferocity of the glare Rachel was sending him, and raised his hands. "Woah. Don't laser me, I was just stating the obvious."

Rachel scowled, and stared back up at the ceiling again, her gaze so fierce that the ceiling began to smoulder slightly as she stopped paying attention.

"Rachel!" Fly practically shrieked from the end of the sofa. "My room's right above us! Stop setting my ceiling on fire!"

This set Carlie, Asia and Livy off into laughter, and Fly glowered at them. Asia started to say something, but dissolved into giggles. "Y..you needed a new carpet, anyway..." she managed, making Carlie choke on her drink.

"Don't tease the poor guy." Rory said, breaking off from his conversation with the silver-eyed girl and rolling his eyes. " 'Ts not his fault Rachel's burnin' a hole in his ceiling."

"It's not my fault, either!" Rachel protested idignantly, shutting her eyes for a moment then looking back at the rest of the room. Slight singe marks were left in the ceiling, and a few embers drifted down onto the carpet. "I can't help it that everytime I get annoyed I spontaneously combust something just by looking at it!"

Mercedes arched an eyebrow. "Honest, Berry, if you set _one_ thing on fire, I'm shaking this place to it's foundations."

"No!" Fly said forcefully, sending Mercedes a dark look. "No," he said more quietly. "No 'shaking', please. I was there when you 'quaked that patch of forest, remember? You know, you almost crushed me several times?"

"Those trees are big." Mercedes said airily, waving a hand dismissively. "Cool it, Southern, I didn't mean to squash you."

Fly frowned slightly. "Stop calling me that? Please? Nobody ever calls Fay 'southern', and you wouldn't dare try use 'fried' on _her_."

The silver eyed girl spoke up. "That's because if they did, I'd cut off their air supply." she said diplomatically, like asphixyating someone was something she did every day. "It's not my fault you're a pushover, big brother..."

"And it's not my fault you're just a little mean." Fly pointed out, and fifteen-year-old Fay, the second youngest in the room, sent him a glare so powerful that if she'd had the same power as Rachel she would have burnt a hole straight through her older brother.

There was an awkward silence, broken by Brittany. "Shhh!" she exclaimed, even though the room was quiet already. Everyone turned to face her with expressions that read _what're you talking about_? "Listen." she insisted, and pointed up to the ceiling.

_"Can anybody hear me?_

_Or am I talking to myself?_

_My mind is running empty_

_In this search for someone else_

_Who doesn't see right through me,_

_It's all just static in my head,_

_Can anybody tell me, why, I'm lonely like a satellite?"_

The sound of someone singing softly drifted down the stairs, and there was only one person in the house it could be.

"_New guy_?" Finn mouthed to Rachel, who nodded slightly, listening. The common room became, if possible, even more silent, and the singer continued.

_"'Cause tonight I'm feeling like an astronaut,_

_Sending S.O.S from this tiny box,_

_And I lost all signal when I lifted up,_

_Now I'm stuck out here and the world's forgot,_

_Can I please come down..._

_(come down)_

_'Cause I'm tired of drifting around and around_

_(I'm tired of drifting around...)"_

Heads turned in the direction of the background singers. Mercedes ignored the stares, and Quinn smiled slightly. Rory didn't seem to notice, waiting for the next chance to join in again. The rest of the room seemed to hesitate for a second, then joined in, voices blending together to create a background for the single soloist as he continued into the second chorus, either oblivious to the other singers or just not caring.

_"I'm deafened by the silence,_

_Is it something that I've done?_

_I know that there are millions, _

_I can't be the only one who's so disconnected,_

_It's so different in my head_

_Can anybody tell me, why, I'm lonely like a satellite..."_

* * *

><p>With the added volume of the rest of the common room, the singing was clearly audible from Blaine's bedroom. Or at least, the room he was in. He trailed off, his voice fading into nothing as he heard footsteps on the stairs, and his bedroom door burst open. He shot to his feet, staring at the spacesuit-clad figures in the doorway and the corridor through red-rimmed eyes. One of the figures waved, and he saw blonde hair poking out from underneath a red spacesuit with the same design on the front as Brittany and Santana's cheerleading uniform.<p>

_"Cause tonight I'm feeling like an astronaut,_

_Sending S.O.S from this tiny box,_

_And I lost all signal when I lifted up, _

_Now I'm stuck out here and the world's forgot,_

_Can I please come down?_

_(come down)_

_'Cause I'm tired of drifting around and around_

_(and around)..._

"What the..." he trailed off, and the room was silent for a moment, save for the sound of shuffling feet as the spacepeople filled into the room. They stared at him, and he stared at them, then suddenly one of the visors lifted. Carlie grinned out at him, and one by one, the other spacepeople revealed themselves. Blaine frowned, confused, then he realised what they were trying to say.

"We're all stuck here, Curly." Santana said easygoingly, rolling her eyes as she pushed her fringe out of her eyes. "All on our own. It sucks, right? Luckily, and this is going to be wonderfully deep, so pay attention, but luckily, there's a lot of us stuck here. So we're never really alone, right?"

"Santana, that's so damn cheesy that I wonder if you've been reading it off a movie script." a boy with a mowhawk commented, and got a dark look from the Latina.

"Oh, Puckerman. Do the world a favour and keep your little mohawk thoughts to yourself? Got that? I'm just trying to be sympathetic and understanding here, you know." she snapped, raising an eyebrow.

Blaine laughed at the two of them, and at the rest of the spacesuit-clad group in general. "Where on earth did you find those things?" he asked curiously.

Santana glared at the mohawk boy. "Well, I'm pretty sure someone found Puck behind a bin, which is where he belongs."

"He means the spacesuits." a blonde girl holding a toddler's hand commented, ignoring the look she was given by both Puck and Santana. "In which case, your answer's simple. We're in a camp full of kids with powers, how do you think we got them?"

Blaine was silent, assuming it was a rhetorical question, and the blonde girl continued. "So, our point is, you're not alone, okay? Whoever you had out there's...well, gone. We have to make do. We just wanted you to know you're not the only one who's got the same issue, okay? Otherwise people just go...strange. Creepy, disturbed..."

"...Like Jesse?" someone piped up, recieving a dark look from Carlie.

"...Miserable." the blonde girl finished. "Because they never get to grips with 'life goes on'. But you have to. Otherwise it's just unbearable."

Blaine could have reacted in a million ways. He could have been offended at the almost blunt way the group in spacesuits had told him to move on, but he wasn't. The way that it was presented was just so...odd...that it was almost endearing. He smiled.

_Now I lie awake and scream, in a zero gravity,_

_And it's starting to weigh down on me_

_Let's abort this mission now,_

_Can I please come down?_

* * *

><p>The world of Kurt's head when he was asleep was a strange, bright thing. He was stood in a large, empty white-walled room that was completely empty apart from himself, and a thousand trillion coloured threads that could each be no thicker than a strand of hair.<p>

The threads were twisted together like spiderwebs, more strands than Kurt could possibly count without needing several lifetimes to count them in. A rainbow of colours spun together over his head; reds and yellows, blues and greens, all interwoven and still moving, tangling and untangling themselves like some sort of deranged tapestry.

As he watched, feeling frozen to the spot, the threads twirled together to create pictures, scenes of people in strange suits and...there. In the centre of the suited figures...a boy. Kurt knew that he knew the boy, but he couldn't quite place the name...

He was aware that this was an oddly vivid dream. That dreams weren't usually like that; not for him, anyway. And even though he acknowledged the fact, the fine strands still twined together, slowly, slowly. Kurt just watched them, fascinated and alone in the room. After a moment, words just flowed into his head and he began to sing softly.

_"So tonight I'm calling all astronauts,_

_Calling lonely people that the world forgot,_

_If you hear my voice come pick me up_

_Are you out there? _

_'Cause you're all I've got..."_

* * *

><p>"Can I ask again? Where did you get the space suits from?" Blaine asked, staring at the sixteen space-suited figures.<p>

A boy with dark brown hair and blue eyes at the back of the little huddle stood on his toes and waved so he could be seen properly. "They're not actually real, you know...I'm Rory, Rory Flanagan. Illusionist." he said in an Irish accent, sounding proud. As Blaine watched, the space suits seemed to fade away, revealing normal clothing underneath. Rory blinked at him, waiting for a response.

"I think you're all insane." Blaine stated after a pause, raising an eyebrow. "I'm Blaine Anderson. Nice to meet you all..."

"We know." a dark-haired girl piped up, with the same accent as Fly. "Britt gossips."

"No offense, but I still think you're insane." Blaine said again, starting to smile. "You could have just come up here and talked to me, but instead you came upstairs in spacesuits."

"You could call it insanity, but you could also call it ingenuity." Asia smiled, taking her helmet off completely. "I think you need to be more open-minded."

"No, it's insanity." Livy confirmed.

"Perhaps not _quite_ insanity, but it's original, right?" Carlie questioned, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, you didn't see it coming, did you?"

Blaine thought for a second. "...No." he admitted. The three girls sent each other looks that clearly said 'mission success'.

"You better get used to this sort of thing." Artie commented. "After all, it's what you're going to have to deal with daily. If things freak you out too much, you can always move to Second or First. The Directors won't care."

Blaine smiled again. "Don't worry about it. You know what? I think I'll be fine here..."

_'Cause tonight I'm feeling like an astronaut_

_Sending S.O.S from this tiny box,_

_To the lonely people that the world forgot_

_Are you out there? 'Cause you're all I've got!_

_Can I please come down? _

_(please, please, please)_

_'Cause I'm tired of drifting round and round_

_Can I please come_ down?

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**The way I wrote the song is awful, and I apologize for that...The song itself is awful, or not so awful depending on your music taste ^_^ But I needed one and it's the only one I could find...**

**So I apologize for the cheesiness and the next chapter'll be much better :')**

**(ooh, shoutout! go read CarlyLeeH's fanfictions if you have chance. They rock ^_^ )**

**~livyceegee**


	4. Snow

Chapter 4

The next morning, Blaine was awoken by the sound of singing. He blinked blearily, and looked around the plain-white walls of his room as if expecting the voices to be coming out of the paintwork.

It drifted up the staircase from the floors below, the sounds of several voices mixing together in a song that Blaine was familiar with.

_"Oh the weather outside is frightful,_

_But the fire is so delightful,_

_But since we've no place to go,_

_Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..."_

He sat up, and slid out of bed, landing neatly on his feet then almost tripping over the too-long pyjama bottoms. He'd had to borrow clothes from what Fly and the Third Three - the nickname given to Carlie, Asia and Livy by the members of the other cabins - called 'the Bunker', a large portacabin full of spare clothes, ranging from shoes to one-colour t-shirts. He'd struggled to find anything that had actually fit him; and for some irritating reason only the orange shirts had fit him. So, now Blaine's wardrobe consisted mainly of his Dalton uniform, four orange shirts, two pairs of basic dark blue jeans and his Dalton shoes.

He ignored the annoying shirts and the jeans, instead removing his Dalton uniform and changing into that, feeling like it was the last link to Westerville he had left. He pulled on the familiar blazer and tied the tie carefully, just like he was going back to Dalton for a normal day at school.

_Keep dreaming, Blaine. 'Normal' isn't going to happen._

_"It doesn't show signs of stopping,_

_So I brought some corn for poppin',_

_The lights are turned way down low,_

_Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..."_

He smiled into the mirror a little sadly, then turned and left the room, walking down the L-shaped corridor and down the carpeted stairs, avoiding the tinsel that was hanging from the banisters above on the second and third floors.

Blaine's mouth fell open at the scene in the Third common room. The whole room was decorated to the point that it would rival even Kurt's high standards; and Blaine knew from experience that _that_ was saying something.

The couches had been rearranged so they were in a square around the large fireplace on one wall, which had been decorated with all manner of wreaths and tinsel, as well as the fairylights that were pinned across it. The fairylights also continued away from the fireplace, spiderwebbing across the ceiling and the walls, giving him the impression that if the lights were turned off, the whole room would look like a constellation. There was one of the biggest Christmas trees that Blaine had ever seen stood in one corner of the room, complete with perfectly wrapped presents. The room was full of the scent of pine needles and Christmas spice, and there were stockings hung over the fireplace - six of them, each labelled with a name.

_"__When we finally kiss goodnight,_

_How I'll hate going out in the storm!_

_But if you'll really hold me tight,_

_Then all the way home I'll be warm..."_

Laughter rang from over the other side of the room to Blaine, and he looked over to see Asia, in black jeans and a white top with a black waistcoat snatch a red Santa hat from the top of Fly's head. He ignored her, still singing, and carried on hooking baubles onto the tree, balancing on one foot to try and stretch up as high as he could.

At that point, Artie materialised in the middle of the floor, making Livy, who was reading, shriek and jump about two feet in the air. Carlie laughed, hooking a bunch of misletoe on the doorway when she thought nobody was looking.

The whole scene was so ridiculously Christmassy that it made Blaine laugh. It was as if they'd been choreographed to be in a Christmas special of some kind, and the singing certaintly didn't help that impression. Carlie turned and waved at him at the same time as Asia did, and the five of them launched into the last verse, Blaine singing along.

_"The fire is slowly dying,_

_And, my dear, we're still goodbying,_

_But as long as you love me so,_

_Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..."_

"Blaine!" Carlie called excitedly, scrambling to her feet with a huge smile on her face. She briefly raised an eyebrow on seeing he was wearing his Dalton blazer, but didn't question his decision. "Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas..." Blaine trailed off, memories from the day before hitting him like a freight truck. _Christmas._

Everything inside him was yelling at him that he should be at home, should be at Dalton, should be with the Warblers. That he should be with Kurt- _Stop right there. _he told himself firmly, clenching his fists together. _If what you've been told is right, then you're never going to see him again. Get over it._...

The thought sounded halfhearted, even in his own head, which depressed him even more. It didn't feel like Christmas, especially not in a room full of almost-strangers in an unfamiliar place. He sighed, and looked around, forcing himself to see the extent of the decorations in more detail to distract himself. "...How did you-"

"-Decorations?" Asia cut in, placing the hat back on Fly's head. "Oh, over in Third, we have our own Christmas elf. He's very helpful." she smiled sweetly at the sandy-haired boy, who yawned in response. Blaine suddenly noticed how tired Fly looked, and raised an eyebrow at the Third Three.

"He's been up _all _night, just like some sort of deranged house elf." Livy added cheerfully, looking up from her book.

Artie stifled a laugh while trying to untangle the wheels of his chair from the pile of tinsel that he'd obviously teleported into. "You really shouldn't make him stay up all night on Christmas eve making decorations." he pointed out, rolling his eyes.

"You wouldn't have done it if you didn't want to though, would you Fly?" Carlie asked, so innocently that Blaine was surprised a halo didn't suddenly appear above her head.

In response, the boy in question flopped back onto the couch beside Livy, shutting his eyes. "Is it actually possible to say no when you come into my room and pass me a piece of paper covered in cut-and-stuck decorations from magazines?" he mumbled, the too-big hat falling over his eyes. He pushed it back, eyes still shut.

"_You_ made all these?" Blaine asked, surprise creeping into his voice.

Fly opened one eye and regarded Blaine tiredly. "Yes. I stayed up 'till four AM this morning making all this stuff - _as well as _Carlie and Asia's Christmas presents for people, the stuff for me included - then they woke me up at half past to help decorate. I'm an Animator, remember? I can bring pictures into reality?"

The Warbler smiled. "Makes sense...sort of..." he said, sitting on couch beside Fly. He was instantly joined by the two girls who were still stood up, who practically threw themselves across the room and squashed onto the couch. Livy made a choked sound as she was crushed against the sofa arm.

"...But...?" prompted Artie, materialising on the other side of the arm with a soft _crack_.

"But...where do I fit in?" came the hesitant reply. "Fly, you just said yourself, you're an Animator. I know Artie teleports. I have _no_ idea what the Three do, but-"

"-Memory manipulation." Carlie interrupted. "I remember everything, and I can read and change people's memories. Quite fun, actually..."

"Fire." Asia grinned, lifting a hand. Flames danced across it and looped in ribbons around her fingers until she blew gently on her hand and the embers died away instantly.

Blaine glanced across at Livy, waiting for her answer, only to find the space where she had been sat before empty. "Where'd she go?" he asked, confused, feeling as if he was missing a major point.

"I'm still here." came Livy's voice from the space where she'd been sat, and as Blaine watched, she faded back into view. "I have invisibility." she explained simply, shrugging. "Continue..."

Blaine smiled slightly. "Okay, _now_ I know what the Three do, but what do I do? As far as I know, I'm totally normal, so why am I here?" he asked curiously.

Artie shrugged, wheeling backwards a little. "We have no idea. We can always go and see Sam?"

The curly-haired boy blinked at him in confusion. "Who's Sam?"

"Sam's a blonde kid from First who's power is to be able to tell what other people's powers are by skin contact - holding their hand, or just accidentally brushing against them and so on." Fly explained, trying to be as small as possible so he didn't make the couch any more cramped.

Carlie's expression brightened slightly at the idea. "Might as well, we've got to deliver presents anyway." she said, getting to her feet and going over to the Christmas tree. She scooped up a large stack of presents, and leant sideways in an attempt to see past them. "This lot are for First." she told the rest of the room, sounding muffled from behind the tall boxes. "Mind getting the others?"

Livy relaxed a little as Blaine got up to help with the presents, so Fly could shuffle sideways, giving her space to actually breathe properly again. "Okay, now that I'm not dying..." she agreed, getting up and taking the top few presents out of Carlie's arms so the blonde girl could see as Blaine picked up an armful of neatly-wrapped boxes.

"You weren't dying in the first place." Asia rolled her eyes, darting over grabbing the last of the presents for First.

Artie stared at the sheer amount of boxes that they were carrying. "How...how much did you _make_?" he asked, sounding a little shocked.

"Far too much." Fly mumbled tiredly, now face-down on the empty couch. "I'll probably end up going to bed before lunch..."

"No!" shrieked Carlie and Asia at the same time, voices high and practically ear-splitting. It seemed to have the desired effect, because Fly sat bolt upright and rolled off the side of the sofa.

"Get up!" Asia yelled at him, trying to keep him awake. "We're going to go see Sam, find out what Blaine's power is, give out presents and eat lots of turkey! Get up!"

Blaine smiled over the top of his stack of presents. "Give him a break, you did keep him up all last night making your Christmas presents..." he said gently, starting to walk toward the door with more than a little excitement. This would be the first time he'd been out of Third since he'd woken up, and staying inside for two days was beginning to drive him a little stir-crazy, much as he tried to hide it.

There was a screech of "I'll set your chequered shirts on fire!", and from behind him, Blaine heard a scuffling of feet as Fly scrambled upright.

"I don't _own_ any shirts other that chequered ones!" he complained, brushing down his jeans. "I arrived in one and everyone's been dumping them on me ever since!"

"Because you look _go-o-o-d_ in them!" Asia, Livy and Carlie sang at the same time, grinning wickedly as they rushed past Blaine and opened the door. Blaine winced as a blast of cold air, freezing in contrast to the warm central heating of Third, hit him, and shivered. He stood on his toes to try and see past Asia and Livy, but the two girls were at just the right height to obstruct his view.

Luckily, a few seconds later they were gone, running down a graveled pathway and past a hedgerow.

Blaine followed them a little cautiously, not really knowing what to expect, and was a little surprised by what he saw.

It looked like...a normal place. No fire, no sparkles, nothing to perhaps even indicate that there was a group of kids with powers living in the area. In fact, it looked a little like a school layout. He could see three Victorian-style buildings - which he assumed to be Zero, First and Second - standing tall at four storeys high; taller than some of the trees surrounding the area. Running up to each building was a gravel pathway, and in the centre was a large, slightly sunken paved-over courtyard, centred by a fountain. Around each building was grass, hemmed in by hedges, and the whole place had the feel of a slightly unkept housing estate, certaintly not what Blaine had imagined.

"What were you expecting, dragons and campfires?" Artie's voice came from Blaine's side, and he looked down to see the blue-eyed boy smiling sympathetically. He reached out a hand, pointing at the boarded-up building. "See that one there? That's Zero," he moved his hand along in a sweeping motion, "First, Second-" he continued around in a circle, skipping past Third and to the last building "-And the Director's building."

Blaine shook his head. "No...it's just...normal, I guess." he admitted, walking outside into the cold. It _felt_ cold enough for snow; and he was slightly disappointed that there wasn't any - it _was_ Christmas, after all. His words and breath fell in white billows to the floor, and he shivered.

Artie laughed, letting the wheelchair roll down the sloping pathway, the gravel crunching beneath the wheels. "We're not exactly...encouraged to use our powers. That's why it's so bland out here, inside the dorms is much more fun. Even the forest is better than this..."

As they rounded the hedges, a figure dressed almost entirely in white crossed the courtyard from the direction of Zero, ignoring the group from Third. Their outfit was odd - the main part, which reminded Blaine of a radiation suit, was all white, and the figure wore black shoes. He or she continued, walking up the pathway to the Director's building and disappearing inside.

Blaine raised an eyebrow. "Why did a person in a radiation suit just walk across the concrete square?"

"The Courtyard." Artie corrected, pulling the breaks on his wheelchair before he rolled off the end of the grass edge where the Courtyard ended. There was a soft _crack_ that Blaine had come to associate with teleportation, even though he hadn't worked out why yet, and Artie reappeared on the dusty concrete of the Courtyard floor about a meter down. "The concrete square is known as the Courtyard. Capital 'C'. And that was a Director. The Three are convinced they're all spacemen...They're probably not even called the Directors. We just call them that because, well...Camp directors. Doesn't really make much sense, actually..."

Blaine nodded, jumping down off the ledge and onto the Courtyard floor. "Fly explained, briefly. They run this place?"

"That's round about what I said." Fly added, dropping down from the ledge beside Artie. "Although I don't blame you if you didn't really pay attention. It was a lot to take in at once..."

Artie stared at the sandy-haired boy. "You...you explained as soon as he _woke up_?" he asked incredulously.

Fly nodded mutely, eyes wide as if he was afraid he'd done something wrong.

The boy in the wheelchair sighed melodramatically, throwing his driving-glove clad hands up in the air. "_Straight after_ he woke up? In an unfamiliar place? I bet he thought you were crazy! Who _does_ that sort of thing? Let the poor guy adjust first at least!" he scolded, seeming to forget that Blaine was even still in the area and talking about him like he wasn't there.

Blaine raised a hand in an attempt to calm down Artie, who looked furious. "Uh...not to intterupt...but still here, you know?"

Both boys turned and blinked at him.

"Oh..so you are." Artie nodded, looking embarrassed. "Sorry about that. Anyway, where was I?"

"Directors." Fly reminded him, earning himself a withering look from Artie, who obviously hadn't gotten over the explaining thing. "Sorry." he mumbled, hurrying on ahead with surprising speed for someone who'd only had half an hour of sleep, and fell into step with the Three, who had just scrambled over the ledge on the other side of the Courtyard.

"Yes...Directors." Artie said, almost to himself, then smiled as he regained his train of thought. "Yes. Directors." he repeated. "The radiation suit people. We don't know much about them, just that they wear those suits because it's the only things that's mostly powerproof. Underneath the masks are some sort of metal headgear that protects against any mental attacks - Brittany can't tell what they're thinking and Jesse - the pain-causer from Second you haven't met him yet and he doesn't leave his room much - can't zap them with pain. The suits are practically bombproof, so Asia can't affect them, and Puck's electricity just bounces off. Puck's from First, you'll see him later, and he can manipulate electricity. It was pretty cool until he busted all the fuses First and they had to use candles for a whole month until he figured out how to fix them. Anyway, long story short, we can't affect the Directors. Hardly. But we keep out of their way and they keep out of ours. If we go near them with our powers, bad things happen." he said the last few words in a low, ominous tone, and Blaine raised an eyebrow.

"Bad things?" he asked as they reached the ledge on the opposite side of the Courtyard to Third. He boosted himself up and onto the ledge, then got to his feet and dusted off his blazer.

The _crack_ that followed Artie's teleportation sounded, and the boy in the wheelchair reappeared next to Blaine. "Bad things." he confirmed, and Blaine was about to ask for a better response when Artie started to wheel forwards and up to Second, where the Three and Fly were waiting. The Three were practically bouncing up and down in front of the door, expressions that read _hurry up!_ on their faces.

Blaine hurried to catch up, and Carlie opened the door without bothering to knock. "Merry Christmas!" she yelled into First, running through the doorway, armed with presents.

Calls of 'Merry Christmas!' from who Blaine presumed were the members of First followed as Asia and Livy each grabbed one of his hands and pulled him through the front door and the hallway, and into what he guessed was the common room.

First was definitely different in comparison to Third. The decorations were sparser, and the hallway was much larger; double doors leading into the spacious common room instead of the single door and narrow hallway of Third. The three couches in the common room were set out in a circle around the fire, which was burning brightly, throwing off heat into the cold room. The walls were made out of stone, instead of the whitewashed walls of Third which Blaine was just getting used to.

On the couches were a few people that Blaine vaugley remembered from the day before, but he'd been such an emotional mess that he hadn't really paid attention to faces. He recognised Brittany, sat on the couch next to an Asian girl with blue highlights in her hair. They were both laughing, and Brittany noticed the visitors and sat up a little straighter, waving at Blaine.

"Dolphin!" she called happily, and bounced over. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, hard. "Merry Christmas!"

The girl with blue highlights in her hair laughed. "Give him a break, Britt. The poor boy's only just stepped through the doorway..."

"Merry Christmas, Brittany." Blaine smiled, and gently disloged Brittany, who carried on beaming at him. She seemed to notice the other newcomers, and rushed over to drag Fly over to the couch, returning to her original seat and pulling him down inbetween her and the Asian girl. She resumed her conversation seemingly from the point where she'd left off, this time including the sandy-haired boy.

Blaine blinked at the scene, confused. Faces on the couches blinked back at him. "Er...Merry Christmas, everyone?"

There was a snort from the kitchen, and Puck emerged with a mug of something hot, the steam curling in wisps through the air. "We're not going to shoot you. We're not allowed guns." he told Blaine, sitting beside a short brunette girl, who scowled slightly at him.

"Instant, Noah?" she asked, nose wrinkled in distaste. "We have a coffee machine for a reason, you know. Urgh. That stuff's disgusting...Oh, Merry Christmas, by the way." she cheerfully told those who had arrived from Third, writing on a tag, which she stuck to one of the several neatly-wrapped presents on the coffee table in front of her.

There was a laugh from the tall boy sat next to her at the word 'Noah', and Puck glared at him before swallowing a mouthful of coffee.

The girl ignored both of them, and smiled at the visitors. "Where are my manners? I'm Rachel Berry, future star and would-be Broadway actress, if we even had Broadway in this place." she announced proudly. "Welcome to First."

Carlie groaned from beside Blaine. "Rachel, do you _have_ to add your not-so-likely-judging-by-our-situation job title _every time_ you introduce yourself to someone?"

Rachel lifted her chin slightly. "I'm proud of my talents. Why shouldn't I tell people?"

The tall boy interrupted hurriedly. "Moving on...I'm Finn Hudson. Nice to meet you, dude." he grinned at Blaine. Rachel glowered at Finn briefly, then returned her attention to attatching tags to the various presents on the table. "Uh...you know you guys can sit down, right?" he told the still-standing members of Third.

The Three instantly took one of the couches, sitting beside a blonde boy with an unusually large mouth. Carlie waved Blaine over, and he hesitated before following them and taking a seat. "Thanks, Finn." Carlie chirped, still beaming. Blaine guessed that she, as well as Brittany, must be one of those people who's always cheerful at Christmas, no matter what happens.

"So, what've you guys got so far?" the Asian girl asked in the quiet that followed. "For Christmas, I mean. Even though there's not much to really get here...there's no department stores or anything..."

"Who needs department stores when you have your very own Dobby?" Asia commented, grinning over at Fly, who mumbled something incomprehensible. "Fly made all our presents this year, so you can thank him."

"I made shortbread." Livy corrected. "So technically he didn't have to make that."

Brittany sent the Three a disapproving look. "You made Southern make all your presents?" she asked, using Santana's nickname for Fly. The boy in question seemed to wither slightly under Brittany's worried gaze, which had transferred itself onto him.

"Can people just get over it already?" he mumbled, crossing his arms.

"Moving swiftly onwards..." Livy cut in, putting her stack of presents on the floor and taking the top one off and reading the label. "Tina!" she exclaimed, throwing the rectangular, awkwardly wrapped present over to the Asian girl, who caught it by leaping to her feet and snatching it from the air before it sailed over her head. There was a rustle of paper as she unwrapped it, then Tina looked up and frowned.

"_Twilight?"_ she asked, confused. "Why? Uh...I mean...thanks..."

Asia laughed. "You said you'd never read it." she stated, raising an eyebrow.

"I _said_ that I wasn't allowed to watch the _movie_ back home because my mom thought Kristen Stewart was a bitch." Tina corrected, but shrugged and opened the book, pulling her feet onto the couch so she was half-curled up and starting to read. "But still, thankyou." she smiled, not looking up from the pages. Carlie high-fived Asia.

Livy took the next present off the pile. "These are from Fly, Carlie and Asia collectively, by the way." she told the room, reading the label on the soft-looking package. "Finn!" she tossed the package over, and it hit Finn in the stomach. He spluttered slightly as the impact winded him, and started to unwrap the package. "Sorry!"

"I think I'll take those." Asia said, grinning and taking the presents off Livy. "You fail at throwing things, Liv."

"I fail at sport in general." Livy shrugged, and started to fade slightly in embarrassment.

Paper was tossed to the floor as Finn finally untangled the mess of cellotape and wrapping paper - obviously the Three didn't do last minute wrapping - and held up a red jacket with pale yellow sleeves. His face broke out into a grin. "_Sweet!_ "

Puck eyed the jacket almost enviously, and Blaine had to laugh at the expression on his face. "A Letterman jacket?"

"Don't freak, Puckerman, you've got one too." Carlie told him, throwing a similarly-wrapped package over. Puck tore off the paper, much more swiftly that Finn had, and inspected his own jacket.

"It's legit." he confirmed. "Like the ones from school...How?"

"Photographs." Artie explained simply. "We just found one of your pictures and our Christmas elf made it."

Brittany stared at him, wide-eyed. "You have an _elf_?" she asked in disbelief.

Artie ignored the question, seeming not to have an answer, and grabbed one of the presents. "Blaine." he announced, teleporting over and passing Blaine a small, square, flat present. The Warbler - perhaps ex-Warbler, but Blaine wasn't ready to think of himself in that way yet - took the present, and smiled. "Thanks."

"It's from Third as a whole, excluding Livy because she baked." Fly added, curled up on the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest like he was about to fall asleep.

Blaine glanced between the other members of Third curiously, wondering how they'd managed to find a present for him in such a short amount of time. He peeled away the wrapping carefully, not one to yank off the paper as soon as he could, and smiled when he saw what he'd been given. "Katy Perry?"

"You sing in your sleep." Artie informed him, then looked horrified. "That sounded so disturbing it's unreal. I'm in the room next door to you. The walls are thin."

Blaine laughed. "Still. Thank you." he smiled at the rest of Third.

"You like Katy Perry?" Rachel piped up, looking intrigued.

The curly-haired boy nodded. "She's got some good songs. I used to sing some of her music with the rest of my show choir back home, the Dalton Academy Warblers."

Rachel's intrest was definitel piqued now, because she sat up a little straighter. "Dalton? In Westerville?"

Another nod. "How'd you know?"

"I'm from McKinley. Lima." Rachel explained. "Most of us are, actually. Me and Finn and Puck and Sam and Mercedes and Quinn and Artie and-"

"-Okay, you've proved your point, Rach." Finn interrupted hurriedly. "Sorry, man," he told Blaine a little sadly "We haven't got you anything. Only known you for a day and all, and we can't all access presents as easily as you guys from Third can."

Blaine shrugged, smiling. "It's fine." he said honestly, not minding if he didn't get presents. He only really wanted one thing: to go home. It didn't feel like Christmas, not to him - Christmas should be back in Westerville, sitting in his living room with his overly-formal father and worrying mother while wishing he wasn't, frantically keeping up with a barrage of texts from Kurt, Nick, Jeff, Wes, David and Thad as they each told each other what they'd got and how embarrassing their parents were being. Doubtless Kurt would be stressing about making Christmas dinner for himself and Burt, and Thad would be trying to bribe Nick out of a slice of Mrs Duval's Christmas cake, which was legendary throughout the group.

His smile faltered, then he replaced it with a fresh one just as quickly. Rachel noticed, though, and raised an eyebrow at him in a way which suggested _'I'm going to ask you about this later and you _will_ tell me _all_ the details or there _will_ be consequences.' _Brittany obviously knew something was wrong, because she sent him a similar expression. Blaine sighed inwardly, and returned his attention to the Three, who were handing out presents.

"Sam!" Asia called, and the blonde boy looked up and caught the present that was sailing his way. He unwrapped it and smiled.

"Headphones!" he said happily, trying to break the over-ear headphones out of their packaging. "This definitely beats Santana's present." he declared, grinning.

"Why, what'd she get you?" Tina chimed back into the conversation curiously, tilting her head. "This is good, by the way. Although Bella moans about the weather a lot, doesn't she?" she told the Three, tapping her book. The Three smiled cheerfully, and sent her thumbs-up signals.

"Wait 'till you read New Moon." Livy told her. "She meets Jacob and it actually becomes unbearable. I'm not a Twilight fan, can you tell? Um...continue." she waved a hand in the blonde boy - Sam -'s direction.

"Chapstick." Sam said rather gloomily. "She got me a very large Chapstick. The label on the packaging read 'To Trouty Mouth, love Aunty Tana.'. The girl's evil, I swear it."

There was a muffled laugh from Artie, who recieved a dark glare from Sam.

"Oh, that reminds me." Carlie said breezily. "We were wondering, as well as offering a Merry Christmas, could we ask a favour, Sam?"

Sam said nothing, but motioned for her to continue.

"Would you mind reading Blaine?" Asia asked. "You know, so we know what he can do. It'd be nice to know. And seeing as none of you have got him a Christmas present..." she trailed off, grinning wickedly.

"Do you promise never to mention _anything_ about my mouth, ever?" Sam asked immediately. "I don't want another Santana on my hands. Seriously, just _one_ of that girl is way too many." he said, shaking his head.

Blaine raised an eyebrow. "Sure, I promise..."

Sam thought for a second, then put his hand up for a high five. "Trust me on this." he told Blaine. "Looks strange, but I need skin contact to read people."

Asia and Carlie leant back, and Blaine cautiously high-fived Sam over their heads. Sam froze and Blaine pulled his hand back, then the blonde boy smiled. "Finished." he announced, looking a little worried.

"Was that it?" Blaine asked, a little disappointed. _Well, that was anticlimatic._

"Well?" Brittany asked, practically jumping up and down in her seat. "What can the Dolphin do?"

A thought seemed to occour to Sam, and he laughed. "I hope you're not afraid of ghosts, Blaine, because you're going to be seeing a lot of them."

Blaine blinked at him in confusion. "What?"

Puck must have realised what the blonde boy meant, because a laugh escaped his lips. "Man, that sucks. That definitely beats being Sparky on the Unawesome Power scale...I have electricity manipulation." he clarified hurriedly. "I don't...sparkle or anything, don't take it that way..."

"I get it!" Livy exclaimed, obviously twigging on to whatever Sam had discovered even if Blaine hadn't. "_I see dead people_." she quoted, earning herself a strange look from the other two members of The Three.

"_Dead people?_" Blaine asked incredulously. "You're kidding me..."

The rest of the room just looked at him with expressions that told him no, they most certaintly were not kidding.

"..._Right?"_

* * *

><p><em>"Not at all. You, Blaine Anderson, can see the dead." the tall, blonde boy with oversized lips declared, grinning mischeviously.<em>

_Blaine, who looked a little shocked, shook his head. "Seriously? You - you...you set things on fire," he waved a hand at the medium-height girl with red streaks in her dark hair, "...and you vanish into thin air-" a girl with a front fringe sat on the same couch disappeared from view, "-and you freaking _teleport_," a boy in a wheelchair smiled sympathetically as Blaine's voice rose, ", and I freaking see _dead people_?"_

_The Asian girl looked up from her book. "Hey, don't worry about it. I see the future and I can't control it. It sucks. I feel sorry for this Alice girl, she knows what I'm talking about..." she jabbed a finger at the pages of her book, which looked new, and continued to read._

_"Fair point..." Blaine started to smile, whatever panic he'd had before beginning to fade._

_Kurt stood in the doorway of the strange room, watching the whole scene. His feet were frozen to the spot, and much as he wanted to run to Blaine and blurt out a thousand questions, he couldn't. He'd tried everything he could think of - yelling, singing, even pleading, and neither Blaine or the other, unfamiliar people in the room seemed to hear him._

_"Blaine, please..." he tried again, but his voice was yet again ignored. He shut his eyes and let silent tears course their way down his face and wishing they wouldn't. He was sick of this; sick of watching Blaine talk to these strange people and not even seem to care that Kurt and the rest of the Warblers were still searching for him. Here was Blaine, enjoying Christmas, and Kurt was selfish enough to be annoyed at that fact._

_He should be happy that Blaine was enjoying his Christmas, wherever he was. And Kurt _was_ happy for Blaine, of course he was - but still, in the same way, he wasn't. Because the boy who was still in Ohio was worried and exhausted and scared out of his mind that Blaine was hurt or that he'd run away, and Blaine himself was now laughing with the strangers, cheerful and smiling. Didn't he care that he'd been taken away from his normal life, and that the Warblers and his family were worried sick? That Kurt was worried sick?_

_No, was the only answer he was able to think of. Blaine didn't care._

_The scene started to fade away, and Kurt was back in the white, empty room, the threads slowly releasing him and coiling away into their tangled spiderwebs again._

_So that was what happened when he touched one of the threads. He saw something. Not that he knew what it was - a dream, a vision, whatever it was. But if it was real - if there was even the _slightest_ chance that what he'd just seen was real - he wanted to try again. Maybe he'd find out something to help with the search..._

_He reached out a hand to take another of the threads in his hands again, then..._

"Kurt?"

Kurt's eyes snapped open. _No, no, no! He couldn't leave now! He had to find out more and - _

"Oh, good. You're awake." came the relieved voice of Jeff, stood beside Kurt's bed and peering down at him past blonde hair that had fallen into his eyes instead of being brushed sideways as usual. "Merry Christmas!"

The boy in the camp bed sat bolt upright, scrambling to his feet. He was still in his blazer - which was now creased completely, and his usually-perfect hair was in a state of disarray. "Christmas! Ohmygosh, it's Christmas and I've done _nothing_ and bought _no _presents other than the one's I had already and done no decorating in this place-"

"-Calm down!" Jeff smiled, laughing partly at Kurt looking anything remotely resembling unkempt and partly at his panic. "You've been out for...nearly a whole day, now. That's plenty of time for us to decorate, even if we don't have your...ah...talent."

There was a snort from over the other side of the room. "You mean 'without your decorating frenzy of total craziness', right Jeff?"

"Input not needed, Thaddeus!" Kurt called, glaring over at the dark-haired boy, who grinned in response. Kurt took the chance to look around the Warbler's rehersal room, and was a little surprised to see a Christmas tree in the centre of the room behind the couch - and a real one at that, not one of the plasticky fake trees that you could get in stores which he hated so much. It was decorated with various baubles, trinkets and enough sparkly things to rival Kurt's Christmas tree back home; which had been up since halfway through December.

Jeff, Thad, Nick, and Wes were watching him expectantly, as if awaiting a verdict. Nick started up a drumroll on the table he was sat at, wrapping presents.

Kurt, not one to throw away a dramatic moment when it was presented to him, let the silence continue for a moment more to create maximum tension before saying "...Not bad...not bad at all..."

Thad let out a cheer and high-fived Wes, which was when Kurt noticed someone was missing. "Hey, where's David? Oh, and Jeff, wipe that smile off your face or I'm afraid you head'll explode."

Jeff laughed, wide-awake. Kurt realised that while he'd been asleep, the others had probably taken their chance and hit the sack, too - not that he blamed them. Okay, so he was a _little_ annoyed, because then it meant that nobody had been searching for Blaine...but from the looks of Kurt's very, very realistic dream, Blaine was doing just fine. "David went home." he explained, and Kurt barely heard him, he was so wrapped up in his thoughts. "His family wanted him home."

_Blaine looked happy._ Kurt thought to himself, smiling a little sadly as he answered Jeff. "I don't blame them...Which reminds me. Why haven't you guys left?" _Maybe he doesn't want to be found...maybe I should just give up..._

"Uh...we were sort of waiting for you to wake up, so you knew where we'd gone." Wes informed him, packing the two or three changes of clothes he'd brought with him to Base Camp back into his old, battered-looking suitcase. "You would have freaked out if we'd just left..."

_I mean, if he'd wanted to be found, he would have called, right? Or left a trail. Or a note. Or some sort of _sign_. He wouldn't have left me...um, that is to say, everyone, without even a little indication of where he was going...would he?_

"No, I wouldn't have..." Kurt trailed off under the skeptical look both Wes and Nick were sending him. "Fine, I would have been a little annoyed. But I would have carried on looking by myself. I would have been fine...I don't mind, really...I'm going to carry on looking now..." he said quickly, freeing the laptop from underneath his quilt and sitting on the edge of the camp bed. He opened the lid, and quickly logged back on, returning to his search from the night before.

_So maybe he doesn't _want _to be found. Maybe I should just leave him be and let him come home when he wants to..._

_...Yeah, like I'm just going to let him vanish out of my life without even a damn goodbye._

"Kurt, we're not stupid." Nick said gently, going over and closing the laptop lid softly. He ignored the confused look Kurt gave him, and continued. "We know you're worried about Blaine - the rest of us are, too. But you should go home. Have a break, eat something. When was the last time you had a decent meal? The rest of us went and used the Food Tech kitchens to make things over the past few days, but you never left this place."

"I had sandwiches." Kurt defended, but Nick's words made sense to him. If he _was_ going to find Blaine, it'd be easier if he could think straight. Eating something and maybe some fresh air might help that... "...What if I miss something?" he protested halfheartedly, aware that if he was fully with it Nick would have no chance. Unfortunately, he wasn't - so the other boy was winning.

"Sandwiches aren't enough." Nick said firmly. "It's _Christmas day,_ Kurt! What about your dad?"

Guilt hit Kurt like a train on a track. _Dad_. He'd left his own father alone at Christmas. And Christmas was meant to be about family and friends, wasn't it? But instead, Kurt was at school, going crazy over the disappearance of a kid that Burt didn't even know all that well. "Damn..." he mumbled, starting to gather his things together.

"...Yeah." Nick agreed, slinging a rucksack over his shoulder. "Jeff? Can I have a ride? I walked here and it's _freezing _outside!" he called behind him.

"Sure!" Jeff's voice came from the back of the room. "Meet me by my car, okay? I'm going to go scrape the ice off the windscreen." he said cheerfully, leaving the room and running down the corridor. His unbuttoned jacket flew out behind him like bat wings.

"Ice?" Kurt questioned, raising an eyebrow. It had been cold outside on the night when Blaine had first vanished, but nowhere near cold enough for ice.

Thad grinned. "That and snow." he said happily. "Well, I've got to go. Merry Christmas!" he shouted as he raced after Jeff, footsteps echoing down the deserted corridors.

"Merry Christmas!" Kurt and Nick responded instantly, and were echoed by Wes, who hadn't been paying much attention.

Kurt turned his attention to the other two remaining Warblers and fixed them with a confused look. "_Snow?"_

Wes literally dived for the windows, yanking the curtains apart. Nick laughed. Kurt stared.

The Dalton grounds outside the window were coated in an inch or so thick layer of white, covering everything. Frost had crystallized on the window, forming patterns that the countertenor had to look hard at to see past.

He exhaled in a long, slow breath. "...Wow. I spend five days inside and this place looks like Narnia or something." he commented dryly, searching his pockets for his phone.

Wes laughed. "Narnia? You're not asleep anymore, Kurt. Anyway, hope you two have great Christmases." he smiled, turning to leave. "My mom's been angrily texting me for the past half hour. Wants me to go home...I'll be back before New Year, okay?"

"Okay!" Nick confirmed, finishing packing up his second bag and slinging it over his other shoulder. "See you, Kurt!" he said, practically glowing with cheerfullness. Kurt wasn't sure how Nick could be so downright _positive_ when Blaine was missing, but he envied him. Kurt was scared and worried and he didn't actually know how to describe properly how he was feeling at that moment apart from a strange mixture of highly strung, guilty, expectant and almost painfully hopeful. Nick, on the other hand, seemed happy and not at all worried, which the countertenor suspected had something to do with the holiday.

"Bye Nick, bye Jeff..." Kurt forced a smile, waving at the two figures as they vanished around the corner, chatting.

He sighed, and let himself fall back on the couch, unlocking his phone as he bounced back against the soft seating. The screen lit up, illuminating his face as he tapped the 'contacts' icon and scrolled through. Not really paying attention to what he was doing, he quickly sent a text.

_(Message sent 10:24)_

_(To: Dad)_

_Merry Christmas! Sorry for being away...Coming home now. K._

Five minutes later, while Kurt was packing up his bag and trying to straighten out the room, his phone vibrated, loud against the coffee table. He darted over, the buzzing sound breaking the silence and making him jump.

_(Message recieved 10:29.)_

_(From: Dad)_

_OK kid. Tried making turkey but the kitchen's a mess, so don't panic if you hear the fire alarm going off when you get back._

Kurt smiled to himself, thanking the stars that he'd taken the two hours needed to teach Burt how to text in comprehensible sentences, and picked up his messenger bag stuffed full of clothes. He cast one last look around the rehersal room, and smiled sadly.

_I'll come back. I promise._

* * *

><p><strong>AN**

**Sorry about the stupidly long update wait! I've had a bad case of writers block and had other stuff to do. (translation: I've been too lazy to write any real fanfiction, instead constantly writing and rewriting because I had a sudden attack of perfectionism.)**

**And I know, I know...Blaine sees dead people. Unoriginal as anything, right? **

**So, yeah. This chapter's gonna be in two parts, and this is part A. Hope you liked it!**

**~livyceegee**


	5. Second

"Just let me get this straight." Blaine began for what felt like the thousandth time. "I can..um...see ghosts?"

The majority of the room either ignored him or didn't hear him, pulling on shoes and coats in a whirl of activity.

Tina, however, still sat on the couch reading, looked up. "Yep. Good power, in my opinion." she commented, looking back down again, thoroughly engrossed in whatever events were taking place in the pages. "Like I said before, I can't control my power - I get pretty much dragged out of the real world and into whatever scene I've got to watch. That's the fun part, because after that I've got to deal with figuring out what sort of significance what I saw has, and when it's going to happen. Thank goodness this place is uneventful, that's all I'll say..."

Blaine looked over curiously. "Did...did you see me? Uh, I mean, did you see that I was going to get brought here?"

The dark-haired girl didn't look up as she answered. "Not specifically. I saw you walking home from your school - you were wearing the blazer you're wearing now. And there was another boy; a little taller than you with really pale skin. Sort of strangely coloured eyes that were a mixture of blue, grey and green? That was Kurt, right?"

He nodded mutely, fascinated and half-hopeful that she'd tell him what had been happening to Kurt while Blaine had been at Camp Brightside. Tina, however, didn't notice, instead motioning _one second_ and closing her book, which she slid under the couch. She got up, leaving the common room, and untangled a pair of boots from the mess of laces and buckles that hovered around the small entrance hall.

Blaine scrambled to his feet, grabbing onto the arm of the couch as the world suddenly span around him, and shook his head slightly, knowing it had something to do with getting taken. Maybe he just had a delayed onset concussion or something. Either way, it'd fade over time, so he followed Tina, wanting to know the rest of the story.

He waited patiently, curiosity winning out over leaving First as soon as possible, and handed her the last coat on the pegs beside the front door which he presumed was hers.

Tina smiled at him, and took the coat. She continued her account as she buttoned it up. "His phone rang, and he answered it. You talked for a bit, then he went in a different direction. You were disappointed, because you watched him until you couldn't see him anymore, then you went home."

"...Can..can you see what he's doing now?" Blaine blurted anxiously, mentally clinging to the idea like it was a lifeline. He missed Kurt, missed him badly - like the countertenor had taken part of Blaine home with him that day, and the hole left behind ached. What if he'd got up the courage to ask if he could go back with Kurt, ignoring his father?

...But then again, he wouldn't have even suggested that. Friday Night Dinners were sacred for the Hummel household, and Blaine couldn't have intruded on that. Burt was still wary of him, and even the suggestion would have overtipped the delicate scale that was _we're just friends._ And Blaine, if he admitted it to himself, was too afraid to try that, much as he wanted to; simply because he didn't know if Kurt felt the same way and he didn't want to alienate the pale boy. Rejection was one of Blaine's downfalls, and he wasn't used to overstepping it.

Tina shook her head, dragging him back to reality. "I'm sorry, Blaine. I can't do that." she said gently, as if she'd had to soften the same blow before. "I can only see things that directly affecting me and the people around me. Half the time it doesn't even make any sense, and I don't know when I'm going to get a vision. Kurt isn't part of your life here; so I can't see what's going on..." she trailed off, watching his expression carefully as if to gauge for a reaction, then continued. "You never know, you might see him again...People with powers tend to gravitate around other people with powers. That's why there's a bunch of us from McKinley, because we all sort of unconsciously joined together. It runs in families, too - Fay and Fly are brother and sister. Maybe your Kurt'll turn out to be like the rest of us, too."

Hope lit up Blaine's world like a flare in darkness. "R-Really? Oh God, I hope so." he said almost feverently. "I really, really hope so."

_Your Kurt._ If the rest of the information hadn't come along with it, that statement probably would have been enough to destroy Blaine's composure completely.

Tina seemed to see the way the idea rooted itself in his mind "I'll keep an eye out, I promise...You really did like him, didn't you?" she said in the same gentle tone, smiled, and hurried away to join Rachel and Brittany before he could ask any more questions.

He felt the past tense of the sentence as if someone had kicked him, the flare flickering out. _You really did like him, didn't you? _

He wasn't quite sure what he'd been expecting - actually, he did. He'd been expecting, or at least desperately hoping for Tina to tell him exactly what had been happened in Ohio since he'd been gone, hoping she'd tell him that Kurt was fine and the Warblers were fine and that none of them were worrying. He didn't want to wreck their Christmas holidays by being...missing. Although...there _was_ that small, selfish voice that wished that they were searching for him, wished that they missed him as much as he missed them.

"Yeah." he said softly, as two of the Three - he wasn't paying enough attention to see which two - linked their arms through his and tugged him out of First and back into the courtyard. "Yeah, I really did..."

* * *

><p>Tina hesitated for a moment after she'd fallen into step with Britt and Rachel. Brittany, being the mind reader, knew what was wrong instantly, and smiled kindly at the Asian girl.<p>

"What he doesn't know can't hurt him." she said sagely, twisting her fingers together absentmindedly.

Tina sighed. "That's just it. What he doesn't know _is_ hurting him."

* * *

><p>Kurt pushed his front door open, avoiding the sight of his reflection in the knocker. His hair was messier than he'd have liked it to be and was sticking up at all angles, having broken free from it's usual perfectly-sculpted style. <em>Look at yourself. You're a mess.<em>

"Dad?" he called, stepping inside and stamping the snow off his shoes. "I'm home!"

"Oh, hey kiddo!" Burt shouted from the kitchen, over the sound of a consistent high-pitched beeping which Kurt recognised as the microwave. "Ignore the noise! Merry Christmas!"

Kurt felt a grin slide onto his face, and he put his bag down by the stairs. "Should I expect much?" he raised his voice over the insistent beeping, following it into the kitchen.

Burt let out a laugh. "Have faith, Kurt. How do you think I survived over the past few days? I can cook, you know."

"Marginally. How's Pavarotti?" the younger Hummel conceded, entering the kitchen and opening the microwave door, grabbing oven gloves as he went. The beeping stooped, and a small amount of smoke billowed out. Kurt wafted it away with his hands, removing a blackened foil pot with gloved hands then turning to appraise his father with a raised eyebrow. "You were saying?"

"Nobody likes carrots anyway." Burt waved the comment away, taking what looked like a badly-stuffed turkey out of the oven. "Fine, I can cook, just not with much style. I'm a mechanic, not a chef. And Pavarotti's fine, he's up in your room. I've missed you, kid."

Kurt smiled, setting cutlery on the table - two sets of knives, two sets of forks. The usual. "I've missed you too, Dad."

Ten minutes later they're both sat down at the too-big-for-two table, eating a slightly burnt but still-tasty turkey.

"See? You're not dying from my cooking, are you?" Burt asked past a mouthful of turkey.

Kurt considered it, pausing for an unnecessarily long time for dramatic effect. "Not bad, I admit."

The chef in question stared at his son for a moment as if trying to work something out. "...Kurt. Did you...is there any news?"

"Of...of what?" Kurt asked in a small voice even though he knew exactly what Burt meant, a mixture of guilt and fear washing over him. Anything could have happened to Blaine, anything, and he had no idea where he was. _No, Dad. There's no news. Nothing. I don't know where Blaine is, Dad. I didn't find anything. I failed._

It was clear that Burt noticed the way the expression in Kurt's eyes changed. A flicker of sadness and pain that showed briefly in grey-blue eyes, then vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by a too-bright smile. He hesitated briefly, unsure of the best course of action to take. "About Blaine."

At the mention of the name, Kurt broke almost completely, the carefully-maintained persona of carefreeness shattering. He stared down at the table through tear-spiked lashes, shoulders shaking and arms crossed tightly to try and hold himself together. "N-Nothing." he choked out, wishing he could have held back the tears until he was alone in his room. He didn't want his dad to see this - the crying and fear. It'd just make him worry. "I don't know _a-anything_."

_"Kurt!"_

He looked up sharply, hearing Burt's chair scrape backwards. "No, stay sat down, I'm fine!" Kurt chirped out with false cheerfullness. _Nice one, Kurt. Destroyer of Christmas cheer._

Burt affixed him with a hard stare. "No, you're not." he stated, walking around the side of the table, dragging his chair up next to Kurt's and laying a hand on his shoulder.

Kurt took a deep, shuddering breath, and forced a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "He's my best friend, Dad. I know I haven't r-really said that before...but...he is. And now's he's gone."

"They'll find him, kiddo. He's a seventeen year old in Ohio, he can't have gotten far..."

"But what if they _don't!_" he burst out almost angrily, then shook his head. "No. No, I'm sorry. I'm just - I can't - _I don't know what to think_, Dad! It's been five days now, anything could have happened! He could have been kidnapped..." he forced out the words, not wanting to say them "...murdered, raped, _anything_! The police don't have any leads, he's just..._gone_!"

"Five days." Burt mused almost thoughtfully, then repeated himself a little more loudly. "Five days. It's only been five days, Kurt. There's still time...And you said 'best friend'."

_Oh, Dad, this is a terrible time to give me the boyfriend talk._ Kurt thought helplessly, but nodded silently.

"Are you sure he's _just_ your best friend? I mean, would you have reacted like this if it was any of the other Warblers? Like if something happened to Wes or David?"

"Yes, I would have!" The countertenor exclaimed, but he knew that wasn't true. If something had happened to the others, he would have been more...well, _rational._ But it wasn't the others; it was Blaine, and somehow that made the situation so much more confusing.

The steady stare didn't waver. "Are you _sure_?"

"Yes, of co- no, I'm not." Kurt said miserably, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. The tears had stopped for now, but they hadn't gone away. It was as if he could feel them, ready to spill over at a single wrongly-interpreted word, and he hated it. "I-I'm not sure at all. With everyone else, I could have at least thought straight, but it's _Blaine,_ Dad. I don't know what to think at all. I mean, what if he didn't get taken?"

"Then you'd have nothing to worry about?" Burt guessed, confusion crossing his expression.

"No, no, you don't see my point! What if he didn't get taken because he ran away and...and...oh, I don't _know_." the smaller Hummel sighed, exasperated, and shut his eyes. "What if he left because he wasn't happy? He told me something, you know...the last time...the last time I saw him. He told me that his dad wasn't happy with him being gay...What if that's why he left? What if we weren't enough to make him happy? What if _I_ wasn't enough to make him happy, so he left?"

The tears were back again, slipping past closed eyelids and down porcelain cheeks as Burt pulled Kurt into a slightly awkward hug. "Hey. Hey, now, don't think that...Blaine's a smart kid, and nobody else he knows apart from his dad minds, does he?"

The countertenor shook his head, afraid to talk incase he ended up sobbing.

"Exactly. So he knows that there's no reason to run off, doesn't he? Mr Anderson'll come round. I mean, I did, and you're at the more fabulous end of the spectrum, aren't y'? If he did run off, he'd have left some sort of message, wouldn't he?" Burt said carefully.

Kurt laughed humorlessley, knowing that no offense was meant by any of his father's comments. He was just trying to make Kurt feel better while somehow managing to avoid implying that Blaine either intentionally ran away or had been kidnapped. "Yeah. I guess... I guess so..." he managed, and pulled back. "The food's getting cold."

Burt waved a hand in a dismissive fashion, leaning over and pulling his plate over to the side of the table he and Kurt were sat at. "You're not hungry anyway, I can tell. You've barely touched your food."

Kurt smiled faintly, pushing back the worries that still nagged at the edges of his mind. _Christmas is about family. I don't want Dad to worry about me at Christmas._ he told himself firmly, adding a little more cheerfullness to his expression. "Sorry about that..." he apologized, referring to the crying episode as well as not eating the perfectly good Christmas Dinner.

" 'S nothing to worry about." the older Hummel replied a little gruffly. "Merry Christmas, kiddo."

"Merry Christmas, Dad."

* * *

><p>"Just to warn you, Second can be a little...chaotic." Artie advised, suddenly appearing next to Blaine as the collective members of First and Third walked down the gravel pathway from First, the pebbles crunching underfoot - or in Artie's case, underwheel.<p>

"Because this place isn't already chaotic in the slightest." Blaine replied sarcastically, raising an eyebrow, then sighed. "Sorry. I'm just a _little_ stressed right now. So, what chaotic horrors await me inside? Sorry, again...Stressed." he apologized. "I'm not usually sarcastic, I swear..."

Artie shrugged. "Don't worry about it. I don't blame you; I was pretty freaked when I first came, too...And I guess by that you mean what powers do they all have?"

"_No!"_ Carlie exclaimed from behind them, her voice laced with sarcasm. Blaine looked over his shoulder and sent her a strange look, causing her to look embarrassed and blush a little. "Sorry. You might not be sarcastic, but me, on the other hand..."

"...She's sarcastic. Regularly." Livy supplied, rolling her eyes.

"You'll want to slap her occasionally, but that's a bad idea. Because she'll kick you in the trousers then make you forget about it. It's why everyone thinks Carlie's nice." Asia added, grinning.

"Because they don't remember the bad stuff." the front-fringed member of the Three chimed back in.

Carlie glared at them both. "Oh, come on! I'm not _that_ bad. Anyway, on with the explaining, Abrams."

Artie sighed. "I would, if you'd let me get a word in edgeways. Honestly, I don't know why me and Fly put up with you sometimes, apart from the fact that the other dorms wouldn't take you. Blaine, where was I?"

"Powers." Blaine told him helpfully, and the boy in the wheelchair snapped his fingers as if to say _yes!_. Blaine watched him carefully, curious - he hadn't really had a proper explanation of everyone's powers, just fleeting explanations; even when it came to his own. It was becoming more and more apparent that this was because the kids at Camp Brightside viewed their powers as something natural that didn't really need explanation. Powers to them ranked at about as average as eye colour, simply because _all of them had one_, so it wasn't really strange at all.

"That was it! Right, the powers in Second are some of the most powerful and the most harmless at the same time. You've got Mike Chang- Tina's boyfriend; there's a lot of First-slash-Second relationships around here, we Thirds tend to be the singles, but anyway - who has Time Manip. Basically, he can time travel, stop time, reverse it, whatever you can think of, but he can't change anything and it's energy draining. So he uses it, but only goes between times when absolutely neccessary. Usually he just freezes it and unfreezes it." Artie began, then teleported as they reached the ledge where the courtyard was sunken. "That's pretty harmless. At the other end of the spectrum is Jesse St James, who's gift to the anyone who annoys him is a whole lot of pain. Ranging from headache to 'thrown through several windows from thirty floors up, splatting the pavement and just lying there all broken' sort of pain. Don't get in his way."

"Honest, Rory pretty much comes down with minor migraines everytime he tries to speak to him." Puck added into the conversation, jumping down onto the concrete paving stones of the courtyard. "Don't mess with Jesse. Not even I'd try that, and that's saying something. He's a scary guy when he wants to be."

"And if Puckerman would let me continue..." Artie hinted, and Puck rolled his eyes.

"Just trying to be helpful. Geez, nobody appreciates anything around here anymore." he complained, falling back into step with Finn and Rachel.

"...Anyway. Seeing as Puck brought him up, Rory's the Illusionist. You met him yesterday, so it's pretty easy for me to explain this one." Artie continued, rolling himself forwards.

"Do you want me to..." Blaine made a pushing motion with his hands, unsure of whether Artie would appreciate the offer or not.

The other boy smiled gratefully, pushing his glasses up his nose. "If you could. I like to wave my hands around when I talk sometimes, and I don't want to ram anyone's heels or anything."

The Warbler sidestepped behind the wheelchair, pushing it forwards as he walked while Artie continued his description.

"Rory can trick all your senses, so he can create sound and touch illusions as well as sight ones. He could probably hurt you like Jesse does if he wanted to, but luckily he doesn't. He usually just uses his power for fun, so that's okay. The same can't really be said for his friend, Fay Eade- that's Fly's sister."

"I know." Blaine told him. "People keep saying that."

"We just like to remind ourselves because they're not really much alike and we forget otherwise." Artie shrugged. "She can create force fields, and she knows how to use them to her own advantage, so don't irritate her. Thankfully, she's only fifteen and mostly just mischevious, so she's all bluster. Don't worry if she threatens you. She probably could expand a force field inside you until you exploded, but she won't. She likes jamming my wheels though, so that's annoying. You've also got Santana Lopez to watch out for - she's a shapeshifter."

Blaine nodded. "I already met her yesterday when I met Brittany. The Latina girl?"

"That's the one." Livy cut in. "I don't mind her, she's okay really."

Asia waved a hand. "Ignore Liv, she's overly tolerant."

"Santana's got a skill for insults. She's human-"

"-When she wants to be-" the Three chorused in unison.

"-But seriously, that tongue could cut diamonds." Artie finished. "By the 'human' comment, I mean she can literally shift into anything. She can be anyone, any animal or any object, if she knows what they look like well enough. It gets easier for her to hold a form if she's been in it before, but if she's inexperienced with a shape she'll fluctuate back to normal. Who's left?"

Carlie considered it for a moment, then said "Quinn, Beth, Mercedes.", listing the names off on her fingers.

"Right. Quinn Fabray's a healer, which is pretty much self-explanatory. Like Mike, her power's energy consuming, so if she's bringing someone back from the brink of death she has to sleep it off for a few hours. That doesn't happen much, though, because usually we don't half-kill each other." Artie explained, and Blaine took note of the word 'usually', finding it a little disconcerting. "Beth Fabray-Puckerman's her daughter - yes, Puck's the father. Ask them about it if you want to know, because that's their story, okay? Beth's got what we call Torpor ; which is 'numbness' in Latin. She sort of releases this mist that makes anything it touches numb, ranging from anasthetic-style numb to no senses at all numb. She's two, and she can control it usually, but it just sort of happens when she gets freaked out. Quinn's good at calming her down though."

"But I'm better at it!" Puck called over cheerfully, a grin on his face, then returned to his conversation with Finn. Artie pulled the brakes on his wheelchair, then teleported upwards, pulling Blaine with him. The now slightly-familiar feeling of being pulled apart, spread everywhere at once then refitted back together again rushed through him, then faded as quickly as it began, leaving Blaine, Artie and the wheelchair on top of the ledge.

"Sorry about the teleport. Needs be, I'm afraid, because there's no access ramps around here, annoyingly enough. Lastly, Mercedes Jones. She's luckily very nice, which is a good thing to say she has the power of Earth. She likes making earthquakes, so if the ground starts to shake, don't worry, because she's normally got good control. She's Rachel's offical Diva Rival." Artie finished.

"Finally!" Asia smiled, scrambling up over the ledge and leaning down to pull Carlie up after her. "I thought you'd still be explaining when New Years came around."

There was a creak as the front door to Second opened, revealing a tired-looking Asian boy with spiky hair wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. "Merry Christmas...and stuff..." he yawned, smiling out at the ragtag group of Firsts and Thirds.

"_Mike!"_ Tina exclaimed from the front of the group, breaking off from beside Brittany and Fly to run forward and practically throw herself at the Asian boy, who reacted quickly, catching her and readjusting his balance with ease.

"Tina! Uh, too early in the morning to tackle-hug me, but okay!" he said, a wide grin on his face as he set her down on her feet.

"Hey, get a room!" came an indignant but amused voice from the floor above, and Blaine glanced up to see faces at the window directly above the doorway.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Santana!" Tina called up.

"Yeah, Merry Christmas, San!" Brittany called up cheerfully, bouncing on her heels as she caught up with Tina, pulling Fly along with her.

Santana smiled happily. "Hey, Britts! One second, I'm coming down!" she scrambled up onto the window frame, and balancing on the edge.

"Okay, everyone back up!" the Asian boy - Mike - warned, and Santana rolled her eyes.

"Calm down, Chopsticks, I won't kill them." she said breezily, and stepped casually off the window ledge.

Blaine knew that he should probably be indentisized to weirdness by now, but he still let out a yell and skittered backwards as Santana plummeted almost gracefully from the second floor window. Halfway through her fall, she seemed to flicker in midair, and suddenly she was a rush of black feathers and a sharp beak which alighted on top of his curls.

"Argh! Hey! Off my head!" he yelped, trying to brush the perfectly-unruffled raven off the top of his head.

"San, that's not nice!" Brittany protested, folding her arms. In response, the raven flitted from Blaine's hair to the blonde cheerleader's shoulder, shuffling her wings to a more comfortable-looking position.

Fly laughed nervously, inconspicuously stepping away from Brittany and Santana, balancing the presents he was carrying carefully. "Er...shall we go in, then?" he suggested, obviously a little wary of the girl in the form of a bird. "You know, otherwise we'll all just be stood outside here...doing nothing..."

Santana hopped off Brittany's shoulder, shifting back into her usual form and purposely leaning over to give Fly a too-wide smile. He shrank back slightly, and hurried forwards towards the door.

"Cool it, Southern, I'm not gonna peck your eyes out yet!" she called cheerfully, and the silver-eyed boy shuddered as he slipped past Mike and a faintly blushing Tina inside the Second hallway.

"You shouldn't tease him, you know." Carlie narrowed her eyes at Santana.

"And you shouldn't treat him like a little brother." Santana shot back. "He's a year older than you. You're only sixteen, you know." she said loftily, and the Three as a whole glowered at her, sweeping forwards as a unit and through the doorway. Santana grinned and waved the rest of the group forward with one hand, and Brittany linked their pinky fingers together as they trailed after the Three. Rachel glanced between the two leaving parties, shrugged, and followed, a spring in her step as she bounced through the doorway, pulling Finn behind her.

"And...what was that about?" Blaine asked, confused. Artie laughed.

"The Three have sort of... adopted Fly. They're a year younger, they torment him occasionally, and they got him to do all their Christmas work for them, granted, but if anyone messes with him they get _irritated._ Usually that means the person who's the source of their irritation wakes up with burns that they can't see so they can't get them checked out, and usually they can't remember where they got said burns." he explained as Blaine pushed him forwards.

Puck snorted, falling into step with Blaine and Artie and shutting the Second front door behind him."Wheels, you're acting like Yoda again." he grinned, running a hand through his mohawk which looked as if he hadn't brushed it that morning.

"A...again?" Blaine questioned, confused. "So he _doesn't_ act like that normally?"

Artie rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Puck. You're confusing the new guy."

"He's been here five days. That's not really _new_ any more." Puck pointed out.

"Well, three of thorse days were spent knocked out, so it doesn't really count. " came a slightly familiar girl's voice. Blaine turned to see the blonde girl from the day before who'd been with the toddler, and guessed she was Quinn Fabray. Meaning the absent toddler must be Beth. "Which reminds me, Blaine - how are you? I visited when you first arrived, and you were in a pretty bad way. I did try healing you, and it's mostly worked - the bruising's gone down a lot, I see." she mused to herself, walking in a circle around the Warbler with an almost inspecting look in her eyes.

_Was I really that beaten up?_ he wondered to himself, trying to search himself over and assess the damage that he wasn't entirely sure was there. He became more aware of a pressure in the back of his head, and reached a hand to the back of his head, touching it gingerly. He winced as a bolt of pain struck him, and made a mental note not to touch the sore spot, stepping sideways to allow Puck and Artie to get past and into the common room.

Quinn didn't miss the reaction, her eyes flickering from the back of his head back to his arm. "Tender, huh?" she asked sympathetically, and Blaine nodded. Quinn took the chance to shoot out a hand and poke his upper arm, which sent another shock of pain straight to his skull.

"Ow! Yeah, still bruised." he said in a confused tone, stepping back. "What was that for? You could have just asked..."

"Not any more it's not." the girl stated with an expert flick of blonde curls, stepping forward as Blaine stepped back and quickly jabbing the sore spot.

"Why do you keep doing that!" he exlaimed, rubbing the back of his head instinctively and cringing in preperation for the pain.

Which didn't come.

"You're welcome." Quinn said smugly, brushing past him and into the common room. "Side effects may include a little daze-edness."

Blaine followed, his mind a slightly confused fog. He poked the back of his head as he walked, surprised that Quinn's power had been so effective so quickly. Contrary to Artie's explanation, she didn't seem to suffer any adverse affects, apart from a slight darkening of the shadows beneath her eyes as if she'd lost half an hour of sleep.

Brittany waved him over as he entered the room. "Over here, Dolphin!" she called, patting the space on the couch beside her. "And don't worry, you really did look awful. But Quinn fixed you, so you're fine now."

He smiled warmly at the blonde cheerleader. She was really starting to grow on him, in a friendly sort of way - Brittany was one of the most naturally sweet people he'd ever met, and he doubted that she'd ever had a dark thought toward anyone in her life. Somehow she reminded him of Jeff; in the way that she seemed eternally bubbly and didn't care about other people's opinions. "Thanks, Brittany. Yeah, she fixed me..."

"Call me Britt, it's easier and means that I don't have to live up to the legacy of Britney Spears." Brittany said cheerfully but seriously.

"Britney-" Blaine began, raising an eyebrow, but Santana interrupted him.

"Brittany Susan Pierce." the Latina explained as if it was obvious. "Brittany S. Pierce. Brittany S'Pierce."

"Oh. Right. Er..." Blaine struggled to fill the sudden lull in the conversation, and glanced from side to side awkwardly. The silence between the cheerleaders and the Warbler seemed to expand and fill up

"...Merry Christmas?" Rory suggested from the other side of the room, sat with his back pressed to one of the couch arms in the gap between two of the identical ornate-looking pieces of furniture. The dark-haired Southern girl that he seemed to hang around with blinked at him with surprised silver eyes, making Blaine mark her down as _almost definitely Fay._

Rachel laughed, sat beside Finn. Blaine briefly wondered if they were attatched at the hip, but dismissed the idea. Camp Brightside was strange, but more supernatural strange, not genetically-fused-together sort of strange. "Merry Christmas, Rory."

Blaine smiled. "Yeah, Merry Christmas."

* * *

><p>As Christmas Day drew to a close, Kurt was curled up under his quilt on the couch in the Hummel living room. The TV was on, and some sort of Christmas special was playing, the screen lighting up the darkened room while Kurt gazed absentmindedly at the screen. Burt was watching it, that much was clear, but the events onscreen just didn't intrest the countertenor in the slightest.<p>

Instead, he was thinking. More specifically, he was thinking about the coloured threads from his dream, and the way that he'd been pulled into the scene with Blaine and the room full of strangers. He'd been asleep;yes. But the scene had been...realistic. Scarily so.

He could still bring back the memories perfectly - everything from the way the fire cast shadows around the soot-blackened brickwork fireplace to the voices of the strangers and the way they were sat. The whole scene had been too _real_ to be just a dream.

_I'll try tonight. _He decided, steepling his fingers together and staring past them into the dark spaces behind the TV screen. _If I see the threads again, I'm either right or delusional._

"Kurt?"

He snapped out of his daydreams, and reasserted the bright smile from dinner. "Yeah, Dad?"

"Anything else you want to tell me? You've gone all quiet." Burt glanced over at Kurt worriedly, obviously seeing the thoughtful expression behind the fake smile.

Kurt had to fight the sudden temptation to tell his dad about the threads, but the more sensible part of him screamed in protest. If moping about Blaine wasn't enough to convince Burt the pale-skinned boy was crazy, then admitting that all the hopes he had of finding Blaine basically relied on a dream that may or may not have been real would definitely land him in a psychiatrist's chair.

So he smiled a little brighter, and guiltily lied through his teeth.

"No. There's nothing else I haven't told you."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

**I _finally_ updated! Sorry for the wait! And yes, I know I sort of suck at writing angst. I'm working on it, promise.**

**On a side note, have you guys all seen the trailer for _Struck By Lightning_? If you have, then _asdfghjkl I can't wait to go see it I can't wait I can't wait I can't wait and I'm probably gonna cry at some point seriously Chris Colfer get less talented because you make the rest of us seem subhuman. Or actually, don't. Fangirling over._**

**__If you haven't seen it, then I advise you to. **

**~livyceegee**


	6. Conspiracy

**Side Note:**

**I realise I've made a couple of consistency errors over the last few chapters, so for that I apologize. I didn't quite take into account how much little detail I'd have to remember to keep this fic running smoothly (like with all stories), and being the idiot I am I didn't write anything important down until tonight. One thing I'd like to clarify is Quinn's age when she got to Camp Brightside - she was thirteen, not twelve, for future reference, although she was still the first to arrive at the camp. Just to make things clear. If you see I've messed anything else up, just drop me a line and I'll make sure to fix it, 'kay?**

**...I need to stop typing past midnight. My brain stops working properly after 1 AM.**

* * *

><p>The threads were back again.<p>

Kurt still wasn't entirely sure whether they were just a stress-induced reccuring dream, whether he was seeing them out of desperate hope, or whether they actually meant something. Either way; he didn't care - hope made the situation seem so much brighter.

He stared up at the ceiling of the blindingly white room, marvelling at the twists of colour that spiderwebbed over his head. As he watched, the threads spread, spiralling downwards and connecting with the pristine floor. He stretched out a hand to the closest thread, and-

-And he was at Dalton. More specifically, he was back in the rehersal room, the familiar carpet warm beneath his bare feet (it seemed he was in his Dalton uniform, every item of clothing present and acceptably fashionable excluding his shoes and socks, which apparently didn't exist). Every detail was precisely how he remembered it being during the school year; a comforting mess of lyric sheets and chairs that hadn't been pushed under properly. As he looked around, he caught snatches of conversation from disembodied voices that he recognised as those of the other Warblers and himself, even though he was the only one in the room. On the table was Pavarotti's cage, the cover half-on like it'd been haphazardly pushed back over the wire framework.

_But why?_

That was the clearest thought he could come up with. The night before, he'd been in an unfamiliar place with mostly-unfamiliar people. Now, he was in the Warbler rehersal room, alone, his thoughts yet again as clear as ice.

_It's definitely one of 'those' dreams. Like last night. A 'real' dream. Well, as real as dreams get, anyway..._

Kurt took a breath, and hesitantly stepped forwards.

When he actually managed to move away from the spot he was stood in, he let out a triumphant shout, sounding like he'd breathed in a tank of helium in his delight. The night before he hadn't been able to move at all; he'd been frozen to the spot while watching the _Wait, I see dead people? _scene play out in front of him. Feeling slightly dizzy at the idea that he could move - even though a small part of him yelled _what's so good about being able to walk, huh? You walk everyday!_ - he practically bounced forwards and toward the birdcage.

He reached out a hand and whipped the cage cover off in one smooth movement, and frowned. The cage was empty, the small door left ajar. "Pavarotti?" he asked the air around him, confusion beginning to return.

"_Kurt!_"

The oh-so-familiar voice made him turn around so quickly he stumbled, tripping as his mind worked faster than his feet.

A hand darted out and caught his wrist, pulling him to his feet and pausing for a moment before releasing him, as if to make sure he wasn't going to stumble again. "I don't remember you being klutzy. Have you really changed that much?"

The countertenor kept his eyes fixed on the carpet, not daring to look up incase the spell was broken and the voice and the hand returned to being nonexistant. If he woke up now, it'd be one of the cruelest tricks his own mind could play on him. He took a quick breath that for reasons he wasn't quite sure of sounded shaky, and twisted his fingers together anxiously.

_Please be real. Please, please be real._

"...Kurt? Are you...okay? You can talk, right?"

Finally, Kurt dragged his gaze away from the carpet and onto hazel eyes that blinked back at him worriedly. "Yes, Blaine. I can talk." he said, his voice sounding unreasonably calm in comparison to his spinning thoughts.

"You didn't answer my first question." the curly-haired Warbler responded, the worried look not leaving his eyes.

"...I'm working on that one." Kurt decided after a moment's thought, smiling slightly at the boy in front of him. "You are real, aren't you?"

Blaine stared at him incredulously. "I look real, don't I?"

The pale boy sighed, realising that the question had gotten him nowhere. "Yes, but my imagination seems to have been pretty...well, imaginative recently, so I don't trust it. I hope you're real. I _want_ you to be real." he said honestly, and tried to ignore the way Blaine's cheeks coloured slightly at the words.

He didn't have to ignore the sight for long, because Blaine suddenly laughed. It wasn't a real laugh, though, not one of the laughs that could charm in an instant and was so essentially _Blaine _that it hurt to think about it. The sound was empty and humorless; the laugh of someone who'd given up. "Oh, great. Now my fantasies are so real that they want to know if _I'm _a figment of _their_ imagination." he said bitterly, shaking his head.

"I'm a fantasy now, am I?" Kurt retorted scathingly, crossing his arms. A small voice in the back of his mind told him he should be happy, ecstatic even - _Blaine_ was stood right in front of him, Blaine was _speaking _to him and he was so, so real. "If I'm a _fantasy_, as you so neatly put it, then you should know you forgot my shoes."

At this, Blaine looked genuinely surprised, those irritatingly perfect triangular eyebrows drawing together in a confused frown. "No, you're wearing shoes, aren't you?"

Kurt tapped his feet against the carpet to prove his point, but the action was lost on the curly-haired boy as his eyes didn't once leave the countertenor's face. "Nope. Barefoot, see?" he pointed out.

There was a moment of silence which neither boy wanted to break. The quiet was filled by the bodiless voices in the background, which continued to replay previous conversations even though nobody was listening.

After a minute or so, Blaine spoke up, running a hand through curls that were unusually free of product. "You're very..._real_ for me to be asleep, now I think about it..."

"You're just as real as you were last night." Kurt commented, self-consciously raising his chin a little under the other boy's stare. "So that's pretty real, I guess..."

"Last night?"

He sighed again. "Yes. I dreamt about you last night, too."

"...I dreamt about you, too, if that's any consolation." Blaine admitted, looking sheepish. "We were back here, actually, with the rest of the Warblers, and we were singing _Breakeven_ again. Stupid, right?"

Kurt shook his head, unable to keep the smile off his face. "No, not at all." he murmured, mostly to himself. "It's not strange at all...I haven't convinced myself you're real yet." he added, the last sentence a little louder than the others to remind himself not to be disappointed if the fantasy, as Blaine had put it, shattered around him. "I've missed you."

"I missed you, too." The other Warbler replied almost cautiously, and Kurt wondered if he was suffering from the same worries. "I'm not entirely sure you're real, either. Maybe neither of us are real, and this is just Jeff's dream?"

Kurt laughed, a genuine laugh. "If that's what's happening here, it'd more likely be Thad's dream. I wouldn't put it past him to dream up something _this_ messed up..."

"I really have missed you, you know." Blaine said suddenly, then blushed as if he hadn't meant the words to come out. He looked down, furiously drawing circles in the carpet with the toe of his shoe. The countertenor struggled not to smile at just how awkward Blaine suddenly looked, like he was a kid with his hand caught in a cookie jar. "So...um...what was this dream about, anyway?

"Well, you were talking to people I've never seen before about an ability to see the dead?"

Blaine's eyes widened a little, the stare becoming shocked. "You..._what?_"

Kurt waved a hand dismissively, disappointment crashing down on him like a tidal wave. If Blaine's reaction was anything to go by, then obviously he'd not been in that situation. "I knew it was just a dream. It didn't make any sense, did it?"

He was answered with a vehement shake of the head. "No, no! That's just the thing!"

"_What's_ just the thing?" Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow. As an afterthought, he added "Blaine...you're sort of...fading around the edges."

Because he was. The boy who'd seemed perfectly solid just moments before was beginning to look less and less real by the second, fading out like a ghost on a bad movie.

Blaine barely glanced down at his hands, a look of surprise registering on his face. "Huh. So I am." he stated distantly, then seemed to remember what he'd been talking about. "But that's not _important_!" he insisted, shaking his head again so quickly that the dark curls bounced. "What's important is that _did_ happen! I was there, I should know!"

Now it was Kurt's turn to stare. "Okay, you're definitely not real." he decided. "Because real people don't see dead people. Movie people, maybe, but not real people. _Right?_" he finished frantically, feeling as if his already shaky foothold on the sanity of the scene was slipping away like it'd turned to sand.

_"But it did happen!"_ Blaine burst out desperately, his voice sounding tinny and faraway. He turned on the spot, trying to catch a glimpse of himself as he became less and less visible, a panicked look in those hazel eyes. "It happened, I know it did, because I was _there_, Kurt! It _did_ happen, and no, no, _no, _I need to be here now!"

The blue-eyed boy took a step toward the fading figure as his outline wavered even more, practically not there. He'd never seen Blaine so...well, afraid. But that didn't happen, did it? Blaine was practically courage personified_._ He didn't get scared_. _At least, Kurt had never seen him in that state. "What's happening?" he cried out, the panic contagious as he reached out to grab a hand that was barely there.

Blaine clutched Kurt's fingers so tightly it hurt, clinging on as he continued to fade. "I don't know! But I'm real, okay, I'm _real_ Kurt, please please _please_ believe me, and I-"

The pressure on Kurt's hand suddenly vanished, along with the tenor's voice. Kurt suddenly felt very, very alone, stood in the centre of an empty room.

"...Blaine?"

* * *

><p>Blaine's eyes snapped open, and he stared into the darkness, trying to make out any shapes. There was a soft tapping sound at his window, and he ignored it. After a minute or so, the tapping repeated itself a little louder, and was yet again ignored.<p>

His mind was a whirlwind, a mess of thoughts and emotions that kept circulating around one point: had it been real?

It sounded so ridiculous, now he was awake, but the dream had just been so...well..._real_. The rehersal room had been exactly how Blaine had remembered it - well, other than the voices and Pavarotti's empty cage - down to the smallest detail. Even his blazer had been identical to the one currently residing in his mostly-empty Camp Brightside wardrobe. _Tap._

The thing was, no matter how realistic the setting had been, under normal circumstances it wouldn't have even begun to convince him. He'd be asleep now, not worrying about what he'd awoken from, if it wasn't for one thing. One thing that changed his view of the situation.

Kurt.

Everything about him had been...authentic, for want of a better word that wasn't 'real', because the word was starting to make the already confusing sitauation even murkier for Blaine to think about. Yes-

- _Tap - _

_-_Yes, _authentic._ That'd do. Kurt would like that. It made him sound like some sort of fashion brand, one of a kind - _See this? This is authentic Kurt Hummel, right here._

Blaine almost laughed at absurdity of it all. How was he going to even attempt to distinguish between what was true and what was false if he kept getting distracted by the slightest thing?

_Back to reality, Blaine. What _is_ reality?_

Kurt had been there, that was for sure. Really-

_-Tap-_

-Really, truly there. Blaine wasn't sure he could imagine someone _that _painfully real, even if he hadn't been wearing any shoes - which, admittedly, had been a little strange. But that wasn't the point, because he'd _been there_. Everything about him had been too real not to be there, everything from his hair to his eyes to the way he spoke to the way he'd smiled, even if only briefly.

But God, he'd looked tired. Those dark circles under his eyes definitely hadn't been there on the last day of term, but that wasn't just it. It had been more than that; a look of grim determination had been in those blue-grey eyes, concealing the defeated expression that Blaine had only noticed on one or two brief occasions during the conversation. But then again-

- _Tap -_

_-_But then again, he'd been looking.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

Blaine continued to disregard the sound as it became more insistent, lost in thought but still not coming any closer to a conclusion over what was real and what wasn't. _Real_.

Blaine was beginning to hate-

-_Tap -_

_-_To hate that word.

There was a brief volley of taps - all ignored - then one sound did catch Blaine's attention. It was the sound of shattering glass raining down on a white-wood floor, accompanied by a loud thud that echoed around the room.

Blaine sat bolt upright, practically leaping off the bed in shock as he stifled a yell of '_what the hell was that?_'. Before his feet touched the floor, however, his brain kicked back into action and he remembered there was broken glass all over the area of the room by the window, which happened to be right beside his bed.

He froze when he landed, teetering on the edge of his feet while he tried not to move around too much, and leant over to switch on the bedside lamp which was one of his few items of furniture. The corner of the room with the bed in it lit up, the small lamp casting a circle of brightness which glinted off the shards of glass on the floor. Blaine let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding after the surprise of the noise, and carefully navigated his way past the fragments that only revealed themselves by the light reflecting off them.

About halfway to the window, he noticed something almost nestled at the edge of the illuminated area, a dark form that was barely within the circle of light. Blaine turned, and made his way over, picking up the object and bringing it back into the light.

It was a rock, and a somewhat heavy rock at that. He could easily see how, if thrown at the window, it had shattered the glass - it was round but large to say it must have been found outside Third, about the size of his fist. An idea started to formulate in the back of his mind, and as he made his way over to the window, he began to find smaller rocks littering the floor the closer he got to the glassless frame. Gravel.

Someone had been trying to get into his room. The gravel had just been a prelude, to determine whether he was awake or not. When he hadn't responded, whoever it was below must have assumed that he was asleep and thrown the rock in hopes that he wouldn't notice.

Blaine narrowed his eyes as he reached the window, lifting the rock into position over the ledge. Just as he was about to drop it, he hesitated - whoever it was, they had to have seen the light turn on. Chances were they would have fled the scene, so dropping the rock would have no effect.

_Might as well try it._ He reasoned, tensing his fingers. _Just to scare them off..._

He let go, and almost instantaneously there was a chorus of a shriek, a yell and what could only be described as a high-pitched, panicked squeak. This was quickly followed by the sound of an insect flying into a bugzapper, and a low curse in a very easily recognizable voice. Blaine took a breath, and looked downwards.

Standing below him, underneath a quickly-pulsing translucent blue dome, were four figures, two male and two female. One of the girls was shielding her head, her face not visible past her dark fringe and just past shoulder-length hair. Both boys had skittered away from the path of the rock - which was, strangely, frozen an inch or so above the dome that peaked a few inches above the head of the tallest boy. The second girl had one hand wrapped tightly around the slightly smaller boy's wrist, as if she had been holding him to the spot, and her other hand was extended out in front of her, a look of concentration written across her features.

Blaine decided to adress the curser first, seeing as he was the only one who's identity Blaine was sure of. "_Rory_?" he asked incredulously, staring down at them. The shorter boy didn't look up, shuffling his feet whilemuttering an apology only to be elbowed by the girl who was still holding onto his wrist.

His voice seemed to make the group suddenly animated, the smaller girl uncovered her face and glared up at him irritatedly. "What the hell, Prep Boy?"

"Mercedes?"

"Randomly stating our names isn't going to make the fact you dropped a rock on us any better." the other girl snapped, revealing herself as Fay. The focused expression faded from her face as the still-pulsing shield disappeared into nothing. She pulled Rory aside and out of the rock's path, then released him. "Mike, you can drop it, 'kay?"

The fractionally taller boy's shoulders relaxed, and the rock falls to the floor. "I'm still not getting any better at that..."

Blaine frowned. Now he had names - Rory, Fay, Mercedes and Mike. Why they'd thrown a rock through his window was beyond him; but he was planning to find out. "I think what matters here is you broke my window." he whispered down to them furiously, remembering that the rest of Third was still asleep. "What time is it?"

"Two AM." Mike answered immediately without having to consult a watch, and Blaine remembered his power - time manipulation. That explained why the rock was frozen in midair: it was paused in time.

"You didn't answer us." Fay retorted, ignoring Mike's comment. "We threw the gravel to get your attention and you ignored us."

_Oh._ So, the gravel wasn't intended to see if he was asleep to sneak in to his room, it was intended to get his attention. The rock was thrown because he didn't respond.

Knowing this, for Blaine, didn't make the situation any better. "You could have just called up, you know? Like _normal people_? Where am I going to sleep _now_?"

"In the other bed." Mercedes said airily, waving a hand as she brushed imaginary lint off her jeans. "There's two beds in your room, right? Shouldn't be a problem. Are you going to come down, or what?"

"I'm in pyjamas." the Warbler stated, wondering if the group from Second was truly crazy or if he was getting the wrong end of the stick. "And on the first floor. How am I going to get down from here?"

"See, he didn't even consider the stairs." Rory spoke in, nodding as if confirming something to himself. "I say we made the right decision here."

"Right decision in _what_?"

"Come down and we'll tell you." Fay told him flatly, looking unimpressed. "And pyjamas aren't an issue. Rory's in his pyjamas, and his have ducks on the trousers."

Rory muttered something unintelligible that was probably along the lies of _shut up, Fay._

Blaine looked further down into the darkness, weighing the option of climbing down the drainpipe against the option of attempting to creep through the still-unfamiliar building of Third in the darkness. Neither method appealed to him. "I can't."

Mercedes rolled her eyes. "Of _course _you can! Just jump, Dancer Boy'll slow you down before you hit the ground."

Mike turned to stare at her, looking stricken. "I will? Mercedes, you know my controls' not great yet-"

"-Yes, you will." she broke in, sending him a too-bright smile that all but said _I'm awake at stupid o'clock in the morning stood here in my slippers, so you will slow him down or I'll paint the walls in your blood._

"Ah, c'mon Mike." Rory added enthusiastically. "Fay can always catch him if you screw up."

"Uh, hey?" Blaine interrupted, waving down at them. "Just so you know, you're discussing my safety here and you don't sound too serious..."

All four of them turned to face him, blinking up at him through the darkness. A moment of silence followed, just the group from Second staring up at Blaine as if waiting for a verdict.

Fay sighed theatrically, breaking the quiet. "Just jump already!" she complained, crossing her arms. "I'll catch you. Mike?"

The Asian boy nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. We'll catch you."

Blaine looked back at the almost-hopeful faces, then shrugged to himself. Why not? It wouldn't be like it was the first out of the ordinary thing that'd happened to him recently.

"...Fine. But you better catch me." he warned lightly, knowing there wasn't much point in the threat because if they didn't catch him he wouldn't be in much of a position to act on it. He took hold of a glass-shard-free part of the window frame and pulled himself up, stepping into the window-box on the other side. Miraculously, it held his weight.

Mercedes smiled up at him encouragingly. "Great! You do have a backbone, after all...On three. One, two, three-"

Blaine shut his eyes, and stepped off the window box. Bitingly cold air rushed past him, and he instantly regretted the decision. _Idiot, Blaine. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Now you're going to die or at least seriously injure yourself and for what? A group of insane kids from Second..that's not worth dyi-_

_-Wait._

The fall seemed to be taking a longer amount of time than he would have expected it would to say he was only on the first floor. Opening one eye, he saw the world flow steadily past him in slow motion, like he was watching a film that had been slowed down to an almost not-moving pace. He looked down, and saw Mercedes watching him, her dark eyes unblinking for a unusually long time. When she did blink, however, it took a few seconds.

Fay and Mike, on the other hand, were watching him intently in a way that told him they were timing his fall precisely. Rory was just staring, like he expected Blaine to splat against the grass any second now.

Then, suddenly, time reasserted itself and Blaine resumed falling at a normal speed before slamming into something solid that felt considerably softer than solid ground, the breath knocked from his lungs by the impact.

There was a crescendo of footsteps, and suddenly Mercedes was standing over him.

"I killed him, didn't I?" Mike asked, rushing over, wide-eyed. "I got the time mixed up! I slowed down time _for him_, but not _around_ him! I did it backwards!"

Blaine sat up slowly, trying to catch his breath. "I'm not dead, but that took _ages_." he reported, looking dow and finding himself sat on a flat version of Fay's translucent blue dome. Another force shield; just flatter.

"It would do." Mike confirmed, sounding relieved that Blaine was still breathing. "I slowed time for you personally-"

"-Which, unfortunatley, didn't slow you yourself down." Fay explained, grinning shakily. "See, I told you I'd catch you, right? I thought you were a goner for a moment there."

"You left it a little late, don't y' think?" Rory murmered, raising an eyebrow.

She smiled breezily, like the idea of a splatted Warbler didn't really bother her. "Better late than never, right?"

"Not really." Blaine muttered, standing up from the force shield and attempting to push a stray curl out of his face. The cold of the grass bank down the side of Third beneath his bare feet sent a shock of cold through him, and he shivered. "Has anyone told you all you're a little crazy? Now, what did you actually _want_?"

"Your help." Fay said simply, either ignoring the crazy comment entirely or just choosing not to answer. Her voice echoed slightly, and he realised she'd put up another dome, this time encasing Blaine as well as the four from Second. It didn't take him long to realise this was to stop sound from getting out - whatever they were about to say, they didn't want to be overheard.

"...Care to elaborate?"

"Introductions might be easiest." Mercedes suggested, tapping her Converse in the grass. "We call ourselved the Conspiracies."

"Basically, we want to get out of here." Mike supplied, and sighed. "Just don't tell Tina I'm part of this, okay? I don't think she'd get it...She'd worry that she's not good enough to make me want to stay here. I don't want to upset her."

"Mike's girlfriend aside, that's actually a good point." the smaller girl agreed, nodding. "You don't tell anyone about this, okay? We don't want the Directors to know, because they'll stop us. Take a seat." she offered Blaine, indicating the ground before sitting down in the grass.

He obliged, sitting down next to her and folding himself up small to try and stay warm. Rory sat cross-legged beside him, Fay perching on another force shield hovering just above the grass like some sort of supernatural picnic blanket. Mike completed the small circle, filling the gap between Fay and Mercedes.

"Anway." Mercedes continued, pulling at a blade of grass absentmindedly. "Have you noticed how the others don't really seem to care about getting out of here? They just accept that there's no way out."

Blaine nodded, realising what they were trying to say. "And you don't accept it. You're trying to break out. Why don't you just...leave?"

"Y'see, there's the problem. We think one of the Directors is like us." Rory answered, glancing around like he expected one of the white-suited figures to appear and apprehend them all for some sort of crime. "As in...with powers. Mimicry, we've guessed. Because every time we try to get out through the forest in any direction, we walk into a force shield like one of Fay's. A big one, and it's got an electric current - like what Puck can do - running through it. But the white vans arrive and drop people off or bring in food shipments, so obviously it's not there permanently otherwise the vans wouldn't be able to get in, you know..."

"White vans?" Blaine asked curiously. "What white vans?"

"What do you mean, _what white vans_?" Mercedes questioned, frowning. "They come every week. They brought you here in one. They brought everyone here in one..."

"Mercedes, he was unconscious." Mike reminded her. "And he stayed unconscious through the weekly shipment. So he won't know."

"It doesn't matter, I get the idea." the curly-haired boy said quickly, not wanting a long explanation. "Carry on..."

"Well, how did they take you?" Fay asked suddenly. "I mean, what happened? What's the last thing you remember?"

"I got home, and there was nobody there. The lights were off, and they wouldn't turn on." Blaine said, remembering. "There's not many windows at the back of my house where the kitchen is, so there's not much natural light at all. So it was dark. I lit a candle, then someone attacked me. I remember a strange feeling - like the one you get when Artie teleports you somewhere - then everything went black." He shivered slightly as he remembered the blows to the back of the head, the memory of the pain flaring up agan.

"See?" Rory said, as if that explained everything. Which to Blaine, it didn't. "Lights off. That's Puck again. The teleporting feeling? Artie's power. Whoever it was who brought you to Camp, they copied other people's powers to get you here. And they use the same thing to keep us stuck here. We think that they use Tina and Britt'ny to predict when we're going to try and get out, and then they put up the shield. Unfortunately, it works every time."

"So, why do they want to keep us in so badly?" continued Fay, a resolute glint in her eyes that let Blaine know she truly believed everything that was being said with a passion. If anything, he guessed she was probably the most convinced of what she was saying out of the four, and so the most determined to return to her life before Camp Brightside. "Look around you, Blaine. See these buildings? They've been here a while. Quinn's told us that when she arrived - she was the first of us to get here, when she was thirteen, although she likes to say twelve because she was only just thirteen - that the whole place was set up like everyone had just left. The beds were unmade, there were plates set out on the table for breakfast, cupboard doors left ajar...just no people."

Blaine looked back at the Southern girl, her face clearer in the gloom now that his eyes had adjusted. He glanced back up at his broken window and the brightness that was his deskside lamp in his room, then returned his gaze to the faces sat on the grass with him."So you're saying there was people here before us, but they're not here now."

"Yes. Question is, where did they _go_? Were they like us? Why did they have to leave so suddenly that they didn't even have time to shut the cupboards behind them or turn off the gas stove? Why are we here now?" she all but demanded, leaning forward as her tone got more and more passionate. Blaine found himself leaning back at the same time, the word 'Conspiracies' coming back to mind. _Conspiracy theorists._

Except, maybe more like 'conspiracy theor_ist_' and a few others who just wanted to get home.

"And if they got taken so quickly, then when are _we_ going to get cleared out?" Fay drover her point home with a flourish of one hand. "We all have lives to get back to, you know. Decent futures. Everyone else here may be satisfied with being stuck in a little camp for the foreseeable future - at least, until _we_ get taken, too - but we're not."

"I wanted to be a dancer, you know." Mike spoke up in a faraway voice, twisting and untwisting his fingers. "My parents were really...academically orientated, though. I spent my days wondering whether they were going to decide on Yale or Harvard...But I miss them. I miss having the future spread out big and wide like space in front of me, and I miss having to choose which road I'd go down. Here; there's only one option, which is to make do and not complain because everyone's in the same boat as you. I miss the freedom."

Mercedes smiled a little sadly, and shrugged. "Everyone's lost something or someone; most people just choose to ignore it. For example, I know it kills Sam that he can't be around his younger brother and sister, to watch them grow up...Quinn misses her popularity - she was set to be head cheerleader in high school before she got taken, you know. Rachel's like Mike, she hates the fact that she's had her future taken away from her, except it's worse because she's scary ambitious. Rory's got his mom-"

"-_Mam-"_ Rory corrected, shaking his head. "We say 'mum' or 'mam' back home."

"A-a-anyywayyy..." Mercedes carried on, looking annoyed that she'd been interrupted. "Likewise, Finn was all his mom really had, and although he doesn't show it much, the guilt sorta eats away at him, really slowly. You can see the loss in people's eyes when they think nobody's watching. It's become a little of a morbid hobby of mine, actually. Happens with you, too. Little flashes of sadness when somebody says something that sparks off a memory of home."

Blaine looked down at his hands, suddenly self-conscious. He'd been working on concealing his emotions from the others because they all seemed to deal with it so well - had he really been that obvious?

Then again, Mercedes' description rang true yet again as he remembered Kurt in the dream. The defeated look that showed when the countertenor thought Blaine wasn't watching closely enough.

"See? Like now. You just got all miserable while I was talking." the dark-skinned girl concluded, stifling a yawn of tiredness. "Don't worry, you're not really _that_ easy to read, I've just had practice."

Blaine hesitated, then asked the question that'd been nagging at him for the past few minutes."Why are you even telling me this?"

"Because you've lost something, too, just like the rest of us." Rory explained, lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug. "You've got your Kurt."

"Why does everyone keep referring to him as _my_ Kurt?" Blaine sighed, not looking up. "He's not _my_ Kurt, he's his own Kurt. You'd know that if you met him. So what makes me any different?"

A smile that had been spreading slowly across Fay's face reached it's peak. "Because you can see the dead."

"_Mortem Videns." _Mike chimed in, receiving strange looks from the other four people sat around him. "What?" he asked almost self-consciously. "It's Latin. Means _death seer._ I looked it up last night. We can't go around saying _oh, that Blaine Anderson, he sees dead people_, can we? It sounds stupid. Like with Beth's numbness...we didn't just stick with 'numbness' because numbness doesn't sound right, so we say torpor, which is basically just 'numbness' in Latin."

"If all else fails, go for Latin." Mercedes joked halfheartedly.

"Why is mortem whatever important, though?" Blaine asked. He wasn't sure if it was just him being two-am-brain-fogged, or whether the others saw something that he didn't, because he didn't see how the ability to see the dead could be anything but interfering. "I don't even know how to use it right! I haven't seen a single ghost yet..."

"If I'm right - which I am," Fay added the second part hastily, raising her chin slightly and fixing a doubtful Blaine with a steely-eyed glare. Previously, he'd assumed her eyes were silver, like her brothers, but the younger Eade's eyes were less full of silver and more like they were made from a much harder metal. "-Then we'll be able to take advantage of your particular talent to try and find out what happened to those who were taken."

Her words sent a chill through the curly-haired boy. The way they were spoken made it sound like she was expecting the worst, and the idea of seeing ghosts suddenly appealed to him much, much less than it had before. Not that the prospect of seeing dead people had seemed particularly desirable in the first place.

Rory shrugged, drumming his fingers against his legs in a crazed rhythm. "Maybe you just haven't been looking in the right places. Who in their right mind would haunt Third, anyway? No offense an'all, but the place is a disaster zone."

The Warbler laughed. "Oh, _Third_ is a disaster zone? What about Second? Third's relatively quiet compared to your dorm. I could barely see the counter in your kitchen..."

"That's because some people don't clear up after themselves when they've cooked." Mike informed him, casting a pointed look at Mercedes and Rory. "You get used to the chaos. First seems to be the only under-control place in the whole of Camp Brightside. Except maybe the Director's building."

Mercedes didn't seem fazed by Mike's stare. "Hey, I bet there's a bunch of ghosts around Zero...we'll take you there." she smiled, strangely happy at the idea of encountering the dead.

Blaine raised both hands in a _stop_ motion. "Slow down. I haven't agreed to anything yet!"

Four sets of eyes turned on him, watching him closely.

"We're offering you a way out. What's not to agree to?" Fay questioned, an expression of confusion on her face. "I'd agree."

"But has anyone _actually_ gotten out before?"

The question was met with silence that none of the Second members seemed to want to break. It reminded Blaine of the silence in the dream, and the way that him and Kurt hadn't wanted to interrupt the quiet, either. So he just waited, watching their expressions closely.

Finally, Mercedes sighed. "There was...one guy. Cameron. He was Fly's best friend, hung around with him like some sort of lost puppy because he didn't thing anyone else would put up with him. He had 'super speed', as he called it. He was from Second, too, like us, so he was a Conspiracy, too. One day, early last year - so February 2010 - he was with me and Fly, out just past the treeline. He said something about having to go get a coat, which was weird because it was one of those mild February afternoons where it's not that cold, and zoomed off back toward the building."

The small circle had fallen silent save for Mercedes, listening. Even Rory had stopped his incessant fidgeting, and was sat motionless, hanging off Mercedes' every word. Blaine got the impression that this was the first time he'd heard this story, too.

"Santana saw him after that, scribbling on a piece of paper superspeed style. I think she said he broke the felt tip he was writing in because he burnt out the end, which is freakishly fast, even for him. Then, according to Santana, Cam just jammed the note into her hand, grinned, and just zoomed off again. That was the last time we ever saw him." Mercedes continued, not meeting either boy's gaze. Mike, when Blaine glanced over at him, was also looking down, the ground seeming to have become endlessly interesting. Fay was glaring furiously down at the blades of grass she was weaving together, blinking rapidly.

Was...was she _crying?_ Blaine wondered, then dismissed the idea almost immediately. The expression on Fay's face was one of frustration, and he realised that she personally held something against this Cameron for getting back to the outside world when she didn't.

"Anyway, Santana found us and gave us the note because it was adressed to Fly on one side and the Conspiracies on the other. I don't doubt that she'd looked at it, but it didn't have much on it, anyway. I don't know what was on Fly's side, but on ours it said _Snap decisions work. Think fast and they don't see it coming. If you don't see me again, it's because I made it to the other side. Good luck. Cam._" Mercedes recited, giving off the impression that she'd memorised every word. "Fly...let's just say, he wasn't too far off devastated. It was sort of when the Three 'adopted' him, I guess."

"So...if you don't plan something beforehand, the Director with the mimicry can't use precognition to see you doing whatever you didn't plan?" Blaine guessed, fitting the pieces together in his mind while trying to ignore the last part of Mercedes' little speech. _Devastated_. Kurt was his best friend; wasn't he? Had _he_ been miserable when Blaine got taken? The Warbler hoped he hadn't been, hoped against hope that he'd taken it didn't think he could stand being the cause of the tiredness and the loss in Kurt's eyes in the dream.

...He couldn't have caused that...could he?

Mike nodded, the movement across from Blaine bringing him back to the cold, dark two AM reality. "Yeah. From what Cam told us, and seeing as he didn't come back, we can only guess he got past the force shield boundary before they had chance to put it up. At least, I like to think that's what happened. I like to imagine he's back in Suffolk with his little sisters, and he's not looking for trouble."

Fay snorted. "Cam? Not getting in trouble? Yeah, sure Mike. He didn't so much look for trouble as trouble came looking for him. He was like a disaster magnet..." she stiffened slightly, expression falling. "...Crap. I'm doing it again, aren't I? Talking about him like he's dead."

"He might as well be, for all we know." Mercedes sighed, then shook her head. She seemed to remember Blaine and Rory were still there, and replace the dejected look on her face with a brighter one. "Anyway. I'm pretty sure he got out. A _legion _of Directors couldn't stop that kid when he wants to get somewhere."

Looking at the worry on Rory's face and the expressions worn by the other three, Blaine made his decision.

"I'm in." he said suddenly, catching the attention of the rest of the group.

"...Excuse me?" Mike asked, almost disbelieving.

"I said I'm in." Blaine repeated, forcing himself not to regret the decision straight away. "I'll be your ghost detector...You're not going to tell me now there's some sort of morbid initiation, are you?"

Mercedes grinned widely, and she suddenly hugged Blaine out of the blue, having to lean to the side to reach him. "_Great!_ Welcome to the fold, Prep Boy!"

Blaine hugged her back a little awkwardly, taken aback by the sudden display of affection. Was she _really_ that pleased to see a new face join the group, or was she only pleased because now he was the resident Ghost Detector? Somehow, the first option seemed more likely - Mercedes was definitely one of the more likeable people he'd met recently. If anyone was going to see him as a walking telephone line to the 'Other Side', he'd have guessed it was Fay, who was watching the two of them almost critically.

"...I guess he can stay." she decided after a too-long moment's hesitation. "Worst he can do is mess up so bad we all get the wrath of the Directors descending on us. Which he'll probably do anyway, but still."

He stared at her for a moment, confused. _I guess_? Five minutes before, she'd been practically cajoling him into joining the ragtag little group.

Fay rolled her eyes. "Gosh, you're so _gullible_. You look like some sort of little puppy that just got kicked. Yes, of course you can join. You want out, we want out, we're working toward the same purpose. "

Mike laughed quietly. "Fay, stop being difficult. Ignore her, Blaine, she's annoying like that sometimes." he said with a smile. "Welcome to the Conspiracies."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Yay, I finally finished this chapter! Thank you to everyone who favourited, alerted and reviewed this last update! *hugs* At least now I have a decent plot line set up in my mind...was it too obvious I was just spinning out a mini-plot arc before? I hope not...**

**Two notes in one chapter! I'm so sorry! I just thought I needed to explain, though, about my growing collection of OC's. As I've kept writing this, I slowly realised that I need a more than I've seen in other fics (well, the ones I've seen anyway), purely to fill out the other places in the camp, although I'm aware a lot of people don't like any other new characters mixed in with the canon ones. So...er...opinions? **

**(Eventual Klaine shall be eventual. Hopefully the 'in the next few chapters' end of the eventual spectrum, if that makes much sense. Have faith, Klain-ers. I'm waiting, too...)**

**~livyceegee**


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